


Higher

by degradedpsychotic



Series: Stuck in the Middle [2]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/F, F/M, Jean has major depressive disorder, M/M, Marco is just in a very deep rut of grieving, Mental Hospital AU, No but there's a lot of self-harm and suicide in this so please be careful, a lot of mentions of suicide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-18
Updated: 2015-06-07
Packaged: 2018-02-26 05:27:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 96,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2639792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/degradedpsychotic/pseuds/degradedpsychotic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A mental hospital is kind of like the clearance bin at a dollar store. There's a lot of random shit, and not all of it belongs, but they all have the same yellow tags, for the most part. And, hey, you might find that one thing you didn't even know you needed, but you could probably find a use for it. Or maybe it's just fucking useless, and you can identify with it in some poetic metaphor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In case you guys didn't read the tags (I hardly do), this fic will be very heavily woven with **depression, self-harm, and other mental illness symptoms.** This is, after all, a mental hospital au. 
> 
> Adding onto that, this is a very personal work of mine. I was in a mental hospital myself for two weeks just last month, and I found that replacing myself and the sick people I met with other characters and writing it like that was actually a really good coping skill for me. So this is going to update a bit sporadically, and the lengths of the chapters will vary. Just a head's up.
> 
> So yeah. Enjoy!

“My name is Jean Kirchstein, and I tried to kill myself on Friday.”

I half-expected everyone in this little attempt of a circle to say something like “Hi Jean” in that monotonous drawl that I had seen in so many TV shows and movies. But this wasn’t an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting—More like a Suicide Anonymous meeting. My little confession wasn’t any news to anyone else—I had a yellow hospital band around my left wrist with my name and date of birth on it, followed by a green dot like those stickers they use at Salvation Army to mark down stuff on Fridays.

That little green dot meant that I was _deathly_ allergic to peanuts, which was a lie on my part. I just didn’t _like_  peanuts, and somehow it was easier to say you were terribly allergic to something rather than explain why you didn’t like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to the average American that probably had peanut butter on a bi-daily basis.

The yellow was honest, though. That just meant that I was in here for suicide, and a vast majority of the other patients in this depressing place had the ugly color hidden under the sleeves of hoodies and sweaters because this place had no decent heating. But pajama pants and hoodies seemed to be in style around here, especially with bare feet or complimentary hospital slippers. I was no exception, huddled in a Fall Out Boy hoodie that was a size too big and four years old, Superman pajama bottoms, and a beanie shoved down past my ears because my hair was a brown-roots mess. But everyone else here had shitty hair and even shittier fashion sense, so I really couldn’t bring myself to give a fuck about the new kid huddled in the chair next to mine with a blanket drawn around him like a shroud.

“Would you like to go into more detail, Jean?” That was Krista, our leader for the day. Krista was a fucking saint—It must have been on purpose that her name was only a couple letters away from Christ. I’d only been here three nights and four days, but whenever she had been around, she always made an excuse to talk to me, and everyone else. And it wasn’t the usual “How are you?” that the nurses asked over a clipboard. It was something like telling you secrets about what was in store for the next meal or winking and saying she might be able to get something from the vending machine that didn’t taste like protein-packed cardboard. She worked as a social worker for most of us, but I had the ungodly luck of having some bitch named Ymir that decided the best medicine for major depressive disorder was to make shitty jokes about it between bits of hinting that she was totally banging Krista and everyone else needed to step off.

But Krista was a four-foot-ten blessing of a college psychology graduate, but it was still hard to cave in when she asked to spill my guts in this shitty little room while the TV played some early morning infomercial on mute.

“No,” I deadpanned, arms crossed loosely across my stomach as I slouched backwards, determined to find some comfort in this scratchy, half-stuffed excuse for an easy chair.

She nodded, making a small note on the papers she had stacked on her briefcase from her seat on the floor. She had said that sitting on the floor made her more approachable, something about us feeling powerful because we were above her or some shit. But she was _short_ , so that excuse was a moot point because we were all taller than her anyway. Except Armin. There was a running bet going that he was shorter than her, but he never stood still long enough around her to confirm or deny that. Of course, the only thing we had to bet were the questionable desserts at dinner. Winner got all of them. Which could be a good thing, or the recipe for a very upset stomach.

She looked up once she was done writing with her stubby pencil and I went back to picking apart the Styrofoam cup that used to hold gross decaf coffee. Caffeine fucked with medication, or something like that, but I doubted the sludge that sat in the pot all day would have tasted better with caffeine anyway.

“Your turn, sweetie,” she called, and I didn’t even look up as the guy next to me finally pulled down his blanket to at least show his face.

“Sorry, I didn’t sleep well,” he slurred, as if he was drunk, before he yawned and continued. “I’m Marco Bodt, and I, uh, also tried to kill myself,” he said lamely, putting his feet on the floor and the neon yellow of his socks immediately got my unwilling attention.

Who the fuck wore neon yellow ankle socks?

“That’s okay. Would you like to go into more detail?” Krista crooned in response, giving him that soft little smile that immediately made every mentally fucked man in the room want to marry her. I looked up at Marco for his reaction, but maybe he was too tired for his Goddess Radar to work. I mean fuck, I was gay as hell and I still wanted to marry her.

He stifled a yawn with a hand still under the blanket, and he gave a sleepy nod. “Yeah, I guess. I, uh… took pills.”

She nodded understandingly as he faltered, and I finally gave up on picking my cup to pieces because that was the first time I had heard anyone indulge Krista’s request to “go into more detail”.

And god damn, he was cute.

Bundled in the blanket like he had been earlier, I hadn’t gotten a good look at him. He was much too tall and too old for cuddling in blankets, but that was on the presumption that everyone else was at least twenty-one and some kid was wearing slippers with fucking smiley faces on them. But Marco Bodt and his neon socks had pale, sickly skin, and his dark hair was sticking up in the back from the way the blanket had been around it like a hood. Freckles splattered across his cheek, and I would have bet that if he turned to look at me, I would see them spreading across his nose like matured Bambi spots. His eyes were dark and blank, like everyone else in the room, but there were dark bags under his eyes that outshone even Pissy Eren Jeager.

He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbed something fierce, and he looked down at his lap as he spoke. “My mom died a couple weeks ago, and I guess I just… snapped. I’ve never felt depressed before or anything like that. I don’t even know why I took all the pills. It felt like I was just… watching myself do it. That probably makes me sound crazy—“

“You’re in the fuckin’ looney bin, dude,” Eren muttered, not even looking up as he gnawed on his thumb, watching his toes curl and straighten again. “We’re all crazy.”

Krista sighed, giving a weak smile. “You’re not crazy—“

Eren raised an eyebrow at her, thumb still in his mouth, bruised and about to have the skin broken like a morbid infant. Krista fell silent.

I let out a little snort at the whole exchange, and Marco Bodt turned to look at me with something bordering on fear and loneliness. I knew how he felt. I probably looked the same way when I got here too.

I just shrugged at him, jerked my chin at Eren as if to say _Fuck him._

He just looked back down at his lap.

“Sorry about that,” Krista ventured, lifting a few sheets to scribble something on whichever paper that said _Eren Jeager_ on it.

“It’s okay. You can go to the next person now.”

His lower lip was shaking.

I lamely muttered to him, “First day’s the worst.”

He just pulled his hospital blanket up and burrowed away again.

Krista made a small note, quietly soothing “It’s okay. Next?” as she put Marco’s sheet on the bottom and pulled up Smiley Slippers.

“I’m Armin Arlert,” he sighed, lifting his legs to cross them under himself, accidentally bumping Eren, who was sharing the couch with him. But Eren was too busy chewing at the flesh of his thumb to care. “I’m also here for suicide, but you guys knew that already.” Smiling nervously, he lifted his arm, the sleeve of his oversized bathrobe slipping down to show a yellow band with a rainbow of little dot stickers on it. Allergic to nuts, vegetarian, allergic to latex, allergic to penicillin, allergic to seafood, lactose intolerant, diabetic.

Krista smiled and nodded, making a little note on her paper. “Would you like to go into detail?”

Armin sent a passive glance to Eren, and I went back to destroying my cup.

“Since Marco did, I will. I, uh… I lost my parents when I was young, and my grandpa died last month of cancer. I’ve had minor depression since I was a kid, when my dad died, but it’s gotten worse with age. I got bullied a lot—I _get_ bullied a lot. I tried to kill myself with a gun, but I… I missed.”

I looked up to see him pulling aside his atrocious coconut head of hair, indicating a nasty scar on the side of his temple. Like the bullet had just _barely_ grazed against gray matter. I looked away, flicking bits of Styrofoam onto the generic brown-flecked carpet.

“I went to the hospital after that. My neighbor called the cops when she heard the gunshot. She knew I’d been unstable, and she kinda looked after me… Anyway, the doctors knew it was either a suicide attempt or an attempt at murder, and they figured it out pretty quick. They loaded me into an ambulance and here I am, I guess.”

Krista gave that Goddess Smile again and I got up to get another cup of coffee from the corner, where the shitty little pot was half-empty and there were stale donuts setting out.

And don’t you dare make a joke about the fact that I saw the pot as half-empty. That’s just low-hanging fruit.

“Thank you for sharing, Armin. Eren?”

I filled up another cup, dumped in two creamers and four little packets of Splenda (we couldn’t even have real sugar for our coffee and that was just a fucking crime) before I mixed it around with the little red stir-stick. Grabbing a napkin, I also grabbed the last powdered donut, looking over to see Connie Springer giving me a look that could kill, powder still on his fingers. I stuck my tongue out at him and made my way back to my seat.

“Pass,” Eren muttered, his thumb finally out of his mouth and bleeding weakly on his lap. “You all fucking know.” Yep. He had the only red hospital band—Homocidal. Anger issues. There was a little yellow dot to proclaim that he was suicidal too, but the nursing staff had their priorities when it came to Always Angry Eren.

Krista nodded, made a short note, and I poked Marco’s arm with the little powdered donut, leaving a spot of white powder on his pale blue blanket. He peeked out at me, curious, and I held out the donut in a silent peace offering like I was trying to lure a cat out from under the bed.

“I’m not hungry,” he murmured, keeping his voice low as “I’m Connie and I have anxiety” played with his neon orange hospital band.

I shook my head, still offering it. “They taste like shit, but it beats whatever we’re getting for breakfast,” I told him quietly, eyes darting to the clock as it ticked closer to nine thirty. “Donuts are better for depression than fake egg fluff.”

He took the donut with a quiet thanks, but he didn’t eat it. Just hid it under his blanket with his hands like he was saving it for later. But I had seen his yellow band with MARCO BODT 03/14/93 on it. No little dot stickers. I wondered if he liked peanut butter.

Connie was saying something about the pressures of being the only child and needing to live up to his father’s lofty legacy, but I was trying to muscle down the shitty decaf and convince myself that I wasn’t just drinking it so I didn’t have to talk.

Krista made a note on her paper as Connie finished, absolutely beaming. “Thank you, Connie. Everyone’s so open today! That’s good!”

“Because the new guy opened up,” Connie complained, still eating the crumbs on his napkin as if they would sustain him. “We had to.”

She shook her head, rotating in her spot so she could see past the crammed couch and see the boy in the wheelchair in the corner. “You never have to. Just do whatever makes you comfortable.”

“I do feel better after getting it off my chest,” he muttered, balling up his napkin and going to toss it out and wandering over to pick out the best-looking donut out of the remaining plain ones.

“Good!” still beaming, she gave a smile to the next patient.

He sighed, hands shaking a bit as he played with the covers on his armrests. “I’m Bertolt. I…” He took a breath, shifting awkwardly. “I have major anxiety disorder.” And that was the end of his neon-orange turn, quickly excusing himself and rolling out the open door when his nurse’s head popped in.

“Bertolt isn’t really unable to walk,” I said in a low tone to Marco, having no idea why I was even talking to him so much. I didn’t talk to _anyone_. Getting into shouting matches with Eren didn’t count.

Marco didn’t even look at me. Just made a half-interested sound in his throat. He still looked on the verge of tears.

“And last, but not least,” Krista announced, turning again to face the only other person on the floor with her.

He gave a forced laugh, rubbing the back of his neck and giving a quick show of a yellow band under the sleeve of his flannel. “I’m Thomas. I’m in for suicide too, and I guess I’ll go into detail.”

Krista smiled, glancing at the clock. “You’ve got fifteen minutes before breakfast.”

He let out another laugh, this one more genuine. “I won’t take that long. I just, uh… I’ve been depressed since I was a kid. This is my fifth time in a place like this. I just need my meds straightened out. I’m feeling pretty good though—I should be discharged into outpatient treatment tomorrow.”

There was a smattering of applause, which was really only from Krista and Armin. I clenched my teeth, but forced myself to drink more luke-warm coffee. Thomas had only been here one night, two days. How did _he_ get away with leaving before me? I wasn’t _that_ fucked up.

“Congratulations,” Krista cheered, writing something on the paper before she stood, taking a moment to stretch while everyone gawked at her as she bent down to touch her toes. She straightened up and everyone smacked back to innocence as her hands planted on her hips. “You still have some time before breakfast, so how about we do goals real quick?” But it wasn’t a question—She was already pulling out the little slips from her briefcase and handing them out while Armin volunteered to pass out little dull golf pencils.

I hated doing goals. The little slip just said WHAT DO I WANT TO ACCOMPLISH TODAY? followed by a blank line and a numbered list from one to three that was to be used to write how we were going to accomplish it. Everyone was silent as they wrote or just doodled in the corner, and was tapping my pencil against the almost-empty cup balancing on the armrest of my seat. I glanced over at Marco, because cheating was still possible in a place like this, and saw that he was just staring blankly at the sheet with watering eyes. The only thing he had written, in a strangely neat cursive that didn’t match his messy hair, was _I want to go home_.

I swallowed the abrupt lump in my throat and turned back to my own paper.

I didn’t particularly want to go home. I shared a shitty apartment with my cat and an even shittier roommate, who I was moderately positive had triggered the downward spiral that had sent me jumping into traffic. I couldn’t go back to my parents, though—I had been disowned years ago when I had come out about being gay and an avid atheist, which was a double-whammy to my rich white Christian family in their gated community. They had kicked me out with nothing but a warning to not come back until I had “found God and changed from my wicked ways” and I had bummed an apartment sixty miles away from Trost with a roommate found on Craig’s List. Not the best living conditions, I knew, but considering I was predicted to be in this place for at least two weeks, which meant no work and no paycheck and missing the deadline for rent, I wondered if I would return to find my belongings on the corner with my cat sitting on top of it to keep it all cat-hair coated for my return.

Right, back to goals.

But instead of writing something like _go home_ on mine, I had a strike of wicked motivation, and I wondered if the devil really _was_ real and controlling my pencil at that moment because I had written, in my crude chicken scratch I called writing, _fuck Marco Bodt_.

Okay, I was gay as hell and his freckles and watery eyes were oddly endearing.

And it had been a long, _long_ time since I’d even been able to jerk off.

Under the numbered list, I smirked to myself and pulled my knees up so Marco couldn’t see, but moving my arm to write in that position had sent my coffee tumbling onto the floor, spilling the sludgy sugary mess on the already disgusting carpet and letting out a monotone “Fuck” because I didn’t really care about the carpet or the coffee, but I didn’t want to clean it up.

“Oops!” Krista laughed, as if she was a mother scolding her toddler for drawing on the wall. “Here, I’ll get it—“ Grabbing a handful of napkins, she quickly bent to clean it up, setting the coffee cup back upright. Connie had practically sprung out of his seat to help her like some caped crusader, obviously trying to earn brownie points as he insisted he could clean it for her. Thomas was just enjoying the fact that Krista was on all fours with her back to him and he was blushing and such a little virgin I almost laughed.

“What does that say?”

I started, pulling my little goals sheet into my chest like some romantically compromised heroine in a bad fifties movie. “My goals sheet!” I cried, even adopting the same voice as whatever character Marco Bodt had turned me into.

But he lashed out from under that blanket with a strength that watery eyes and heavy bruises under his eyes had no warning about, and he grabbed the piece of paper from my grip and read it, turning bright red before a sick shade of purple.

Dropping the paper, he stood up and marched from the room. Connie grabbed the fallen donut the same time I grabbed back my goals sheet, and I saw him leaning over to read it, but I immediately tore it in half and shoved it down the chute of the bolted-shut trash can.

“The fuck is his problem?” Eren muttered, ripping up his own sheet with a calmness that would have terrified a nurse if they saw it.

I shrugged, threw away both of my destroyed cups, and left the room to get my morning meds before the breakfast doors opened.

I was on one hundred and fifty miligrams of Zoloft, à la Dixie cup. I was one of the few patients that had a small cocktail—Zoloft in the morning, a fifty milligram of Ambien at night to help me sleep, and a nicotine patch whenever I started to get twitchy. Granted, that Ambien shit just knocked me out flat, and what I got wasn’t exactly _sleep_ but just prolonged unconsciousness. The Zoloft worked, I guess. I had only been on it for two doses so far, but I was putting on a plastic smile and telling the doctor I was fine and I could leave and go back to my cat any day now.

As I waited for the pharmacy window to open after knocking on it like the impatient bastard I was, Armin shuffled up behind me in his hideously happy slippers and BAZINGA! pajama bottoms. He was still clothed in the bathrobe that hung off his frame like some cloak from a cheap medieval film, open and dragging behind him like he was a king. It was his grandfather’s, I had learned, and he broke down just talking about it. Of course, I didn’t say anything to him, too busy burning holes into the closed wood over the window to partake in conversation.

“What’d you do to make the new guy leave?”

I rolled my eyes, bumping a hip against the stone wall and turning to face him, giving up on the pharmacist for the moment. “I didn’t do anything. He just didn’t like my goal, I guess.”

Armin sighed, his arms holding a thick book to his chest. I suspected it was Harry Potter, but I had never learned otherwise, and he seemed like the kind of guy that would be really into that. “You never take those goals seriously…”

“I know, and he got offended by it.” I rolled my shoulders in a shrug, trying to hide my exasperation as the window _finally_ opened. “Not my problem.”

I downed my little brown pill with the cup of water provided, muttering a thanks to the pharmacist as he rolled up my sleeve and slapped the patch on me. I was already walking off before Armin could delay getting his little cup of Effexor and Zoloft.

Unfortunately, the wing we were confined in was incredibly small, and it was impossible to hide from someone for too long. The main desk was in the center, a hallway down each way and the locked pharmacy behind it. Down one hall was the pharmacy window and a series of rooms where we had group meetings—The little room with chairs and couches and a TV that we met every morning, a room with round tables and chairs we did recreational therapy in or ate in if we missed a meal, a little room set up like a waiting room with magazines and another TV, and a final room with cheap exercise equipment and free weights that Eren used for the most part. The other hall led to communal bathrooms and a door that was locked unless it was meal time. One long hallway crossed the whole thing at the front of the desk to make a T, and that was where our rooms were located. Two men per room, and a little closet of a shower to share. There were windows in the room, yeah, but they were about an inch and a half thick and criss-crossed with wire to make them bulletproof. The whole place was tiled, save for the TV rooms, and everything was locked and nurses patrolled every fifteen minutes.

It was just a glorified prison, basically.

I leaned against the locked cafeteria door as I waited, Connie joining me after a few minutes, donut powder around his lips and on his fingers. I was perfectly fine being silent as I felt the beginnings of side effects begin to land. A little drowsy, but that wasn’t anything unusual. Half the people here I hadn’t even met because they slept all the time, thanks to their pills. I was probably the most conscious around here, other than maybe Connie.

And Connie, the little shit, decided to talk. “Krista said we’re gonna have eggs, sausage, and biscuits for breakfast.”

“Gross,” I muttered in response to the small talk, shoving my hands into the pockets of my sweatpants because the chill was starting to set in. If nothing else, warm food would maybe make me feel less like a Jeansicle.

He snorted in agreement, running a hand across his scalp, where his shaved head was starting to grow spikey little bits of tawny brown hair. “At least visiting day is today,” he sighed, looking less like his anxious self and suddenly like a lovesick puppy.

I raised a brow at him, not even dignifying that with a response.

We were only allowed to have visitors once a week, which seemed like some kind of cruel punishment for being mentally fucked. It was only two hours, from seven to nine, and we were all corralled into the cafeteria to sit and chat with loved ones over sugar-free lemonade and pretzels. At least, that’s what I had heard. Tonight would be my first time experiencing it, and I wasn’t looking forward to it at all.

After all, I didn’t have anyone that would bother visiting.

“Ready, boys?” came the over-enthusiastic voice of Hange, who was simultaneously the best and worst nurse. They were enthusiastic to the point of being infuriating, but they were so understanding of the situation that patients were in that it was almost impossible to be angry with them. They came down the hallway with the rest of the patients tailing behind them, dangling a key like a carrot on a stick to a rabbit.

Me and Connie stepped aside as we were let into the cafeteria, both of us stampeding to claim the front of the line, grabbing plastic trays and offering a simultaneous, glass “good morning” to the nurse that served as a lunch lady when it was time to eat.

My plate came back with over-fluffed eggs, a biscuit with the consistency of a hockey puck, and two sausages that looked suspiciously like cat shit.

But I said “thank you” like a good mental patient and grabbed a carton of half-frozen milk and took a seat at one of the long tables, poking at everything with suspicion and a plastic spoon (we apparently weren’t trusted with forks or knives). Connie sat across from me, Armin sat on my left, Eren to the left of him, Thomas on my right, Bertolt taking his tray and going back to his room.

Marco Bodt sat at the farthest chair from where mine was, poking at his food before he pushed it away and put his head in his arms on the table.

The first day was the hardest.

We ate over light conversation, Armin chatting adamantly about his book to Eren, who was actually _listening_ to him. Thomas was flicking hardened crumbs from his biscuit through Connie's thumbs, and I was just trying to eat without thinking so much about the fact that it tasted like watered down sour eggs and dehydrated meat. I kept finding myself glancing over my shoulder at Marco, who was at first hunched with a blanket around his shoulders, then sitting up a few minutes later, quietly talking to Hange as they ate dry cereal with their fingers, Marco putting down his spoon and giving up on food altogether.

“You think we should talk to him?” Armin whispered, Eren having gotten up for a second helping of fake eggs. He jabbed me in the ribs when I didn’t respond, raising his brows at me. “Earth to Jean, c’mon.”

I shook my head, turning back to my Styrofoam plate and hospital food. “It’s his first day. We’ll talk to him tomorrow.”

“He sounds like he’s been through hell,” Thomas piped up, his biscuit now torn to shreds and Connie brushing crumbs off his lap. “We all have, but did you guys here what happened to him?”

A boring atmosphere could turn a bunch of grown-ass men into gossiping old house wives in a minute.

I shook my head and we all seemed to lean forward more, Thomas lowering his voice. At least Marco’s back was to us—Knowing he was being talked about probably wouldn’t do anything good for his psyche.

“He got here at three in the morning. They bunked him in with me, and it woke me up. He was a wreck—Just crying and saying he wanted to go home, that he didn’t want to be here. I don’t even think he slept last night. He kept getting up and leaving the room—I think he was just pacing or going into a group room to cry it out. I overheard the night shift saying that he was in a severe state of grief, and he had taken so much Advil that they pumped his stomach twice and he flat-lined for a minute.”

“Holy shit,” Connie whispered, eyes wide.

“Yeah,” Thomas sighed, glancing over his shoulder at Marco. He then turned to me, fixing me with a glare—one eye on me and the other on Eren, who had just returned with his second helping. “So be nice to him.”

I scoffed, stabbing my spoon into my biscuit, but ending up with a broken spoon. “You wound me, Thomas. I’m the pinnacle of niceness.”

“Shut the fuck up, Jean. I’m nicer than you.”

“You punch someone every day.”

Eren scowled at me, turning back to his plate to shovel more eggs, muttering, “Not _every_ day…”

“Guys,” Armin ventured, frowning at Eren, then at me. “We were all like that on the first day. Just give him a break.”

“I wasn’t like that on the first day,” I muttered, placing my elbows on the table and cradling my head in my hands. “I was a little angel.”

Connie almost choked on his milk, pointing the carton with its little cartoon cows at me. “Bullshit! You were—“

I kicked him in the shin under the table and he slammed his head on the table when he curled in on himself. His milk crashed back to the table, clenched in his fist and splashing a few droplets on the table. He slurred a string of curses into the table before he lifted his head, a big red spot throbbing in the center of his forehead as he glared at me. “Dude, what—“

I flinched, faking that I was about to kick him, and he jumped about three inches back in fear, overbalancing his chair and toppling to the ground.

Eren laughed so hard that Hange had half a mind to get _him_ medical attention rather than Connie. But they helped him up and he batted their hands away in embarrassment, his cheeks now as red as the spot on his forehead. Hange scolded him for not being careful before they snatched my broken, splintered fork, giving me a suspicious look before chucking it in the trash and resuming their seat beside Marco, who was finally picking at his food.

“Fuck you guys,” Connie muttered, downing the rest of his milk like it was a shot on his twenty-first birthday, crushing the box on his tray and getting up to throw it away.

“I don’t think we’re allowed to do that in hospital beds,” I called back, grinning as his shoulders hunched in irritation. “But I’ll pick you up on that offer if we figure it out!”

Connie flipped me the bird over his shoulder and left the cafeteria without even looking at me, but that was okay.

Eren snorted, stealing Armin’s roll and biting into it like it was the softest bread he’d ever eaten. But Eren was just really fucking weird and had a strong jaw, I figured.

“Alright, gentlemen, five more minutes before we gotta clear out!” Hange announced, patting between Marco’s shoulders as they stood up. “I know the food is _delicious_ , but try not to savor it for so long.”

There were a couple pity laughs, and I scraped my tray into the trash before leaving with Thomas on my heels. He quickly announced that he wanted to take a shower before the next group started, so I just found myself wandering around the little wing of the hospital and glancing at the TVs to see if anything good was on at ten in the morning. There wasn’t, really, but a little bat of the lashes got me a DVD from behind the nurse’s desk and I had no sooner found out how to work the TV than Ymir poked her head in.

“Hey, Jean. The doctor’s here for you. I’ll talk to you after.”

Groaning, I ejected the DVD and returned it to a very confused looking nurse, going into the group room with the round tables in it to see my psychiatrist sitting at one of them, a massive binder and several papers scattered around him. He didn’t even bother to give me a smile, gesturing to the chair across from himself.

“Have a seat, Jean.”

My doctor was the only one that used the French pronunciation of my name, and I would be lying if I said it didn’t creep me out a little bit.

But I sat, made myself as comfortable as I could be in the plastic folding chair, and clasped my hands in my lap.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, flipping through pages to refresh his memory. The guy had over a thousand patients in this hospital—I couldn’t really hold it against him.

“Fine,” I replied, giving a lazy shrug. “I slept okay last night. I’m a bit drowsy now, but I probably won’t be taking a nap unless I get bored.”

He nodded, scribbling something down on a seemingly random piece of paper. “Have you been going to the groups?”

I scowled, but reluctantly agreed. “Yeah. I went to goals again this morning.”

He still wasn’t looking up.

I decided to focus on his nametag—DR. JEAGER–and watch the florescent lights reflect off of the black plastic. He was Eren’s uncle—His dad had also been a doctor, but his dad had been murdered five years ago. Eren had gone on a blind fit of rage and stabbed the man to death sixty-four times. Eren had been in jail for five years, after that. His original sentence was shorter, as he was a minor, but bad behavior kept him longer. They eventually decided that jail wasn’t for him and shipped him here, where his dad used to work alongside his brother. I couldn’t really blame this Dr. Jeager for not wanting to see his nephew after something like that.

“What was your goal?” Still writing. I wished I could read his sloppy scrawl upside-down.

I knew I couldn’t say _fuck Marco Bodt_ to this man, lest he put a little pink sticker on my band that meant I was a potential rapist. So I shrugged and replied with, “Just to get through the day.”

He looked up then, peering at me from behind wire-rimmed frames. His resemblance to the pictures of Eren’s father that I had seen was a little eerie. “Are you struggling?”

“Oh no, I love it here. It’s like a five-star hotel, the way they locked me up.” Okay, I couldn’t hold back the sarcasm that time.

He frowned, then wrote something else and looked down again. “Any suicidal thoughts?”

“No.”

“Any nightmares?”

“I had a dream I was admitted to a mental hospital, if that counts.”

Another frown.

I sighed. “No.”

“Mood swings?”

“No.”

“High fever, blood pressure, or heart rate?”

“Nope.”

“Are you eating?”

“Unfortunately.”

He looked up, a small note of concern in the lines of his frown.

“Jesus, get a sense of humor,” I muttered, rubbing my hands over my face as if I could just rip it off and everything would be fine. “I’ve been eating,” I said louder, once my hands were in my lap again. “The food here tastes like shit, but I’ve been eating.”

“We’ll keep your medication as is for now.” He nodded sagely, crossing off a couple boxes and making a couple additional notes before looking up again. “Do you have any questions for me?”

I shook my head and stood, not bothering to push my chair in as he switched out the giant binder titled JEAN K. for one that said MARCO B. on it. I stowed away that fact for the moment, exiting the room to see Marco waiting in the hall, sans blanket and wearing green plaid pajama bottoms and a long sleeved t-shirt. Besides his neon yellow socks, he looked _normal_. I opened my mouth to say something to him, maybe about that fact, but he had already ducked by me and gone into the room to meet with Dr. Jaeger himself. Before I could even think of trying to read lips through the glass window in the door, there was a hand on my shoulder and Ymir was steering me to another group room.

“Let go,” I muttered, worming out of her grasp and flopping onto one of the couches in the smaller TV room. She flipped on the light, which I had shut off for my movie preparations, and reclined on her back on the other couch, raising her legs to use them as a table, leaning her notebook against them and chewing her pen.

Very fucking professional.

“So what’d the doctor say?” she asked, taking a moment to get comfortable before her pen was poised to take notes.

I shrugged, slouching and sinking further into the understuffed cushions. “He’s gonna keep me on the pills I have now and wait and see what happens.”

She nodded, hand writing faster than the doctor’s had. “Any negative side effects so far?”

“A little drowsy,” I said half-heartedly. I can only talk about my mental state so much in the first hours of the morning before I get snippy. And Ymir doesn’t help that _snippy_ part. “No suicidal thoughts, I’m eating, no mood swings, I’m healthy as a horse.”

She chuckled, hand still going. “Y’know, Eren thinks you look like a horse.”

“I know,” I gritted out, fists balling on the couch with the sudden urge to punch Eren Fucking Jaeger in the iron jaw. “Can we move on?”

“Yeah, yeah,” she giggled, writing a few more things before turning her head to see me. “It’s hard to say when you’ll be discharged, but the doctor wants to keep you for two weeks to see how the medication effects you. You said you’ve never taken meds before, right?”

I tried to hide the fact that two weeks of this place was worse than nailing me into a premature coffin. I should have jumped out in front of a semi instead of a sedan. “Right.”

She nodded, tapping her pen against her notebook. “You know today is visiting hours, right?”

“Yeah.” I didn’t like the way this was going. One-word answers were the best option right now.

“Do you have anyone that’ll be stopping by?”

I shook my head. For some reason, I couldn’t get my mouth to work. To admit out loud that, no, I had no one, seemed terribly pathetic. My parents didn’t even know I was here, much less they would even give a fuck. I was pretty sure my roommate didn’t even know I was here, considering that the person that had called in the accident had been a total stranger, and I hadn’t been carrying any ID or even my cellphone on me. I had even shredded my insurance card, which was a horrible decision on my part, because now I would have to try to get a new card or pay out of pocket.

But thinking about money was just going to stress me to Bertolt levels and I did _not_ want that. I didn’t want to add anxiety to my major depressive disorder, thanks. Keep the change.

She looked at me for a while before her usual teasing demeanor dropped and she wrote more on her notebook. “I remember you telling me you’re not on good terms with your parents.”

I snorted. “I don’t even talk to them.”

“Is your whole family like that?”

“Yep.” I was just a walking travesty, wasn’t I?

“Friends, girlfriend…?”

“I’m gay and friendless,” I deadpanned.

“Boyfriend?”

I raised a brow at her.

“Right.” Sighing, she sat up properly, wrinkling her khakis as she folded her long, spindly legs under herself. “During visiting, no one’s allowed to leave the cafeteria.”

“Why? Scared we’ll make a break for it?”

She gave a sick kind of smile. “Yeah.”

I deflated a bit more.

“If you want, we can have a therapist come up you can talk t—“

“I’ll be fine,” I cut across, standing up with my fists still clenched. “Can I go now? I’m missing group.”

She sighed, but remained sitting. “You sure you’re alright?”

“I’m in a fucking mental hospital—You should know the answer to that one.”

“Jean—“

“I’m going to group.”

That was a big, fat, hairy, smelly lie. All I did was duck past the room that group was happening in (Eren was loudly going on a tirade about something and Armin was trying to calm him down) and slink into room 504 and flop into bed with my scratchy blanket and my extra pillow and take a nap because there was nothing else better to do.


	2. Chapter 2

The best way to survive a mental hospital is to be perceptive about your surroundings and eavesdrop _all the time_. Not only was there nothing else to entertain us, but it was possible to lie and cheat your way into an early discharge if you could pick it up. Thomas was a master at this, I found out, and I decided to try it for myself when I woke up from a nap that made me forget what year it was.

I could hear Armin on one of the phones that were bolted to the wall by the nurse’s station, so naturally, I closed my eyes to pretend I was sleeping and listened in.

“You’re coming up for visiting, right? …Yeah, we’re okay. Would you mind bringing me a couple more books? Yeah, I’m allowed to have them. Uh… I dunno. Just grab the thickest ones? …Yeah that one’s good. Bring a couple shorter ones too for Eren. I think he has some comics in my room. …Thanks, Mikasa. I’ll see you later.”

Of course, eavesdropping on a conversation like _that_ was boring as hell.

“Huh? Oh, uh… My doctor said I should be getting discharged at the end of the week.”

Until it wasn’t.

“Yeah, he’s pretty confident that the pills are working. I’ll be going to outpatient care afterwards, but—“ He broke off, giving a weak little sigh after a few seconds. “He… he’s probably gonna be here for a long time. If not here, they might take him somewhere else. He’s refusing to take his pills and he’s having outbursts twice a day, at least.”

So he was talking about Eren. I assumed, at least, considering that the only one I had ever seen have an _outburst_ was Eren. Yeah, sometimes someone cried or screamed at a nurse, but Eren was a repeat offender. And if they were going to keep him until he took his meds, I had a feeling that Eren Jeager would be at St. Maria’s Hospital for the Mentally Ill for a _lot_ longer.

On the other hand, I could sort of see where Eren came from. The guy had been in fucking _prison_ for the last five years, and now he was in a hospital. The whole being in prison thing probably fucked him up even more than he already was. He had given his story the first day I was here, mostly because the only other ones in the room had been Armin and Connie, and I was busy burying myself in a Nintendo Power from 2007 to keep myself from having a panic attack because it had been my first day. Hearing that there was a guy here from a state prison for murder hadn’t helped my state of mind.

Of course, nothing about St. Maria’s was _calming_.

The thing that happens when you first arrive at a mental hospital like St. Maria’s is nothing sort of stripping away your humanity and treating you like a heavily infected _thing_. They strip you completely naked, check your body over and ask the reason behind every bruise, every scratch, and every scar. (I told them the scratches on my arm were from when I had tried giving my cat a bath recently, but they didn’t look like they believed me. Half of them were _really_ from an angry female cat with all her claws, though.)

They then empty your pockets out into a plastic baggie and put your name on it in Sharpie and write down the list of everything you had and you have to sign a bunch of paperwork that you don’t understand while you’re buck naked under a hospital gown in a really cold little closet-like room. They ask you five hundred questions on every aspect of your life, and by the time you’re through the paperwork, you want to cry just because of the stress. But then they take your weight and height and blood pressure and temperature and make you rate your distress on a scale of one to ten on a piece of paper with a gradient of a smiling face and a sobbing one.

Anyone that answers below a five after going through that is a fucking liar.

You then are led by a security guard with a master key and a badge that beeped through newer doors, up and around an enormously confusing amount of hallways and elevators until you can’t remember which way was out, and then you enter your wing. I entered E Ward at five o’clock on a Friday, when everyone was at dinner, and I was set up in quiet solitude. My clothes were brought back in a paper bag, the drawstring of my Superman sweatpants cut out, the laces on my shoes missing, and the string on my Fall Out Boy hoodie ripped out. They gave me a pair of hospital-grade slippers that made my feet sweat something fierce, so I either wore socks or went around barefoot. My hospital gowns were shed in favor of my actual clothes, and I was given dinner in the round table room and I felt horribly alienated while everyone walking by peered into the glass to see New Guy in his new habitat like I was some freak show at the zoo.

The first day was the worst, and my distress level remained around a strong seven until I scraped a few hours of sleep and made a comment about how damn idiotic Eren Jaeger was and he gave me a black eye before the nurses pulled him off.

I’ve never been good at making friends.

Armin hung up the phone after a soft, “We’ll talk later” and I heard him pad away into the room he shared with Eren. I was half tempted to go get on the phone myself, but then I remembered I had no one to call and the sick little feeling in my stomach that came with the thought made me shiver.

I rolled over to put my back to the wide-open door when Hange peered in on their fifteen minute check interval, and went back to sleep.

* * *

 

I really wasn’t a people person. If that wasn’t abundantly obvious, I didn’t know what was. I was a pretentious piece of shit that thought I was fucking useless at a lot of things, but at least I was devilishly handsome and damn good at volleyball. But still, I didn’t have any _friends_. My volleyball team in middle school and the scattered players I joined with in high school had hated me with a passion that adolescent apathy didn’t really care about. I was never invited to parties, never invited to hang out, nothing.

That was the thing about rich kids—We only really gave a shit about ourselves. Though I wasn’t a rich kid anymore, but a twenty-two year old adult with just barely two thousand dollars of hard working money in my savings account. I was in the lower middle class now, and lower middle class people were less snobby, so I needed to change my attitude. Or something like that. That was why I was at St. Maria’s in the first place—Because I was a fucked up, pretentious, gay as hell piece of shit.

So here I was, grabbing my lunchtime tray and moving to sit next to Marco Bodt despite the warning look Thomas and Armin both shot me.

Marco didn’t react to my presence, busy peeling the crust off of his suspiciously crunchy grilled cheese. He seemed adamant about ignoring me outright, beginning to nibble at his meal. But looking closer, I noted that he had a bit more color than he had that morning, and I wondered if he had gotten a nap in too. If Thomas had been right, the poor guy hadn’t slept since… a long time. It was no wonder that he had twenty pound bags under his eyes like he was trying to make a statement.

Knowing he wasn’t about to strike up a conversation, I opted to start, stabbing a little plastic bendy straw through the thin foil of sugar-free apple juice. “So about this morning…” I paused, watching his reaction. He simply swallowed the little bite he had taken and sipped at his own juice. I sighed. “I’m sorry, okay? I never take those things seriously. I use them to fuck with the nurses, if anything. I could have just as easily written _fuck Connie Springer_ on there, but I gotta share a room with that asshole.”

Marco put down his juice box and picked up his sandwich. He still didn’t speak.

I frowned, then grabbed my tray and stood. I looked over to see Thomas watching me, trying to convince me to come back to the table, but I just moved to sit across from Marco so he _had_ to look at me. His sandwich couldn’t have been that interesting, unless he was trying to determine if the cheese within was actually dairy or just cheese-colored plastic. A very risky gamble, indeed.

“What else do you want?” he finally muttered after another small bite, his dark eyes drier than earlier but still completely focused on what was in his hands.

“Forgiveness?” I tried, my own sandwich untouched as I crunched on stale potato chips that I had dipped in my tomato soup to try to moisten. “I’m a shit-eating douchewagon,” I proclaimed, dramatically gesturing at myself with a soup-soaked chip and almost getting a bit of it on my hoodie. “Pretty much everyone here is. You’re gonna have to get used to it, Marco.”

He frowned, dipping his sandwich in his soup and taking a testing bite. He wasn’t too chatty, was he?

“I’m also as gay as Elton fucking John, and it’s an honest statement to say that I think you’re cute.”

His cheeks gained a bit more color, but his freckles were a clever camouflage for the little blush it might have been. “Don’t you have friends to go sit with?”

I shrugged, glancing over to see that Thomas was still occasionally looking over his shoulder at me. “None of us are really friends here. We’re just fucked up people in a fucked up hospital. We probably wouldn’t get along outside of this place.”

He gave a small nod, dipping his sandwich in his soup again. “They say that depression is helped by reaching out.”

I gave a short little bark of a laugh. Marco looked up at me in surprise, and I was captured for a moment because his eyes were dark but warm and there was a freckle crinkled in the corner of his eye. God he was fucking cute and it was disarming because the last time I saw someone cute, they were on TV.

Now that I thought about it, that actor had freckles, didn’t he?

“What? Why’re you staring at me like that?”

I blinked, shaking my head. “Sorry, sorry. Got lost in your eyes. You got a map?”

His face immediately fell into a scowl, and he grabbed his tray and stood. “Goodbye, Jean.”

He scraped off his trash and left.

But I, Jean Kirchstein, was one stubborn son of a bitch. But the first day was always the worst, and I had patience enough to wait until the second day before I broke out anymore cheesy one-liners.

I did not have the patience to sit in recreational therapy with Hange loudly proclaiming that this was the most fun thing ever while we were supposed to write out long-term goals and how to achieve them. What the focus was about goals, I didn’t fucking know. I was more of a roll-with-the-punches guy. I didn’t like plans or goals or shit like that unless they were immediate.

That was probably why I was sitting there with a blank sheet of paper while Thomas wrote a fucking novel in crayon and Armin sketched abstract patterns around his tiny writing. Connie was writing something about becoming a superhero, and Eren was in the group room next door talking to Krista—Well _yelling_ at Krista. Though, when _wasn’t_ Eren yelling? Marco was quietly doing his own, hunched over his work as if hiding. He was sitting at the table with Armin, both silent as ever.

But back to the goals.

I didn’t _have_ any.

Hange paused behind me, and I counted exactly six rapid-fire beats of my heart in panic before they leaned over my shoulder and into my peripheral. “Are you having trouble thinking of something, Jean?”

I saw Marco glance over, and I felt suddenly _very_ self-conscious. I swallowed, grabbing a different colored pencil. Green. “Nah, I have goals.”

“Why don’t you write them down? It’ll make it easier to follow if you can visualize it.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Don’t forget to color it and make it look pretty—Erm, manly! Yeah! Ha-ha!”

Hange prowled away and I pressed the tip of my pencil to the paper, but halted. No, green meant go. Go get your goals. Go be a productive fucking member of society. Don’t get disowned. Don’t get fired. Be worth something and stop being a useless, depressed piece of shit.

I put the pencil down, stood up, and left the room.

I passed Eren in the hall, who decided to shoulder-check me for having such a fucking pathetic expression on my face. I didn’t even bother to react to him, which got me a “What the fuck, Horseface? Watch it!” but I just kept walking because I was having an existential crisis and kind of wanted to kill myself, but in a place like this, that was completely impossible. The best I could do was ask to take my Ambien earlier so I could sleep for a few hours.

“Seriously, why the long face, Kirchstein?”

I would like to say that I had walked away, retrieved the DVD of Captain America again, and went about my moping and foot-dragging. But Eren Jeager had this way of lilting up the end of everything as if he was constantly poking a stick at a bear, and I fucking snapped like a plastic spoon on a hockey puck biscuit.

I spun around so fast that Eren didn’t have the time to react, his eyes widening as I shoved him against the wall with a hand tangled in his Grateful Dead t-shirt. His hands rose to grab my wrist as my arm swung back to punch him in the fucking face, and I managed to give him a bloody nose before he moved, kicking his leg out and kneeing me in-between the legs. I fell almost immediately, and I remembered why I didn’t pick fights with Eren when he kicked me in the ribs to get me on my back and he pounced, fists flying as I just tried to protect my face.

I heard Armin shout Eren’s name and the nurses swarmed us immediately. Hange hauled Eren off me with strength that I didn’t know they possessed, and the nurse that had loaned me the DVD earlier helped me up. I glanced down the hall to see pretty much everyone (Bertolt included) either peeking their heads out of the group room or just standing there, gaping and half-hoping the fight would continue. Marco Bodt was looking over Connie’s head, a bit of fear in his eyes before he ducked away and went back into the room.

We were just entertainment-starved men, and a fight was better than gossip on most white-wall days.

Krista appeared out of nowhere and gently coaxed Eren into an empty group room again, Hange looking at the little girl with hesitation before letting her handle it and going back to recreational therapy. A couple male nurses followed Krista into the room to make sure Eren didn’t go ballistic, though I wondered if they just wanted to get brownie points from her for helping.

I was guided away by a nurse named Petra, who I had only seen a couple times. I knew (eavesdropping, again) that she was married to Levi, who was one of the regular overnight nurses. She was a short, petite woman, but her attitude was one of a mother that had had enough with her troublesome kids.

She sat me down in a cushy office chair behind the desk of the nurse’s station, fiddling around for a first aid kit as I felt my lip start to swell. Adrenaline had taken care of most of the pain, and my nuts still hurt like a bitch, but the pain on my face was slowly starting to bloom. My ribs hurt, my split lip was tingling, and my jaw felt like I had been hit by a sedan all over again.

Eren Jeager may have been a piece of shit, but he was so strong that it was no wonder he had killed his father as a sixteen year old, spindly son of a bitch.

“So what triggered that, hm?” Petra interrogated, dabbing a cotton ball of antiseptic against the split skin under my lip, and I tried not to flinch.

“Nothing,” I muttered, because admitting that horse jokes made me punch Eren in the face was a little… pathetic.

But I had already stuck the pathetic label onto my chest a long time ago.

She let out a little hum, pulling back and looking me over closely. “The split isn’t so bad, Jean. It’s already done bleeding. Do you want a—“

“I’m fine,” I muttered, standing up from the chair and shuffling into my bedroom.

I could hear Petra pick up her clipboard, probably writing something about my behavior on it.

The other rule for survival in a place like this was to be calm and collected if you wanted to get out without six different pills in your system.

Thomas’s head popped into my room about forty-five long minutes into my half-asleep moping, announcing that I had a phone call. I groaned, but slid out of bed, putting on the ovens I called slippers because it was getting _colder_ , if anything. I shuffled my way to the bolted-to-the-wall phone that Thomas held out for me, a certain amount of unease churning in my stomach because I could only think of one person that would call me, and I didn’t want to deal with that just yet.

Nonetheless, I cradled the bulky phone that had been functioning since the early nineties in both hands, turning my back to the nurse’s station as I spoke to the wall. “Hello?”

“Is this Mr. Jean Kirchstein?”

Yep. Nothing like lawyers calling you at four in the afternoon.

“Yes, this is.”

“Hello, this is Erwin Smith. I’ve been asked to represent you at trial.”

My mouth went a little dry. “I have to go to trial?”

“As soon as you’re discharged,” was his smooth reply. His voice was nice to listen to, but the words were a little unsavory. “The driver that hit you is suing for the insurance copay. I’m going to fight for them to pay your hospital bills.”

I sighed, putting my head against the wall. “Did I really fuck up her car that bad?”

My vulgar language apparently didn’t defer Erwin Smith at all. “You didn’t, which is why I'm going to court to argue your case with you. The worst damage was her headlight busting out, and that’s a relatively cheap fix. You were admitted to medical treatment before you were taken to St. Maria’s, so we can sue for that amount.”

The stone white wall was cold, and it was helping me stay calm. “Yeah, and how high are your fees?”

Erwin was silent.

“Look, I’m practically broke. I can’t afford a lawyer or take anyone to court—“

“You’re being served.”

I hit my head against the wall, wincing as the pain seemed to echo around my entire skull. “How much is this gonna cost me?”

“If your case loses to hers, nothing. If you win, five percent.”

Five percent didn’t seem that bad, but then again, I didn’t know what I would be getting. “How much will I get if I win?”

I heard a brief shuffling of papers in the background before he answered me. I pictured him in a big office with a mahogany desk, towering bookshelves with law books, slick hair and stiff suit. “Fifty thousand, at the least.”

I almost dropped the phone.

“Mr. Kirchst—“

“I’m here,” I blurted, running my free hand up to grab at my beanie. “Fifty thousand…?”

“Your ambulance ride to the hospital was two thousand, your treatment there was fifteen thousand due to all of the x-rays, your ride to St. Maria’s was four thousand, and your treatment there is currently five thousand a day. While we can't sue for the St. Maria's bill, we can sue for injury and medical expenses.”

Holy _shit_.

“I, uh…” I tried to wet my lip, tasting copper. “I can’t afford that…”

“Do you have insurance?”

“I shredded my card…”

“They can give you a new one.”

“Y-yeah, then I have insurance.”

“Who do you have it through? I can look up your coverage while you're on the phone.” More shuffling papers. Maybe he had a vintage typewriter from the forties on his carved mahogany desk.

“Uh, I think it was through Legion… The cheap plan.”

I heard typing. A sleek model—Probably the latest Apple Mac. Black. Perfect size to fit in a leather briefcase with paperwork and smaller law books.

“You’re covered for fifty percent at St. Maria’s. So it’s costing you about two and a half grand a day, excluding taxes.”

That was way more than I had in the bank. I took a slow breath, tugging off my beanie and using it as a stress ball, not caring that my atrociously under-combed hair was now in the wild. “And if I win, you’d be taking…?”

“Five percent. If you get only fifty thousand, my firm will take two thousand and five hundred, plus taxes.”

Taxes, taxes, taxes. But either way, I was going to be paying twenty-five hundred bucks.

“Okay. When’s the court date?”

“I’ll settle that with your social worker. Hopefully, we can arrange the court date for the day after you’re discharged so we can get this settled as soon as possible.”

 _Great_. Ymir was in charge of this? “Okay,” I sighed, resting my forehead against the wall again.

“I’ll keep you posted about what’s going on at my end. I’ll leave my extension with Ms. Ymir so you can reach me if you have any questions.”

“Thanks,” I muttered, not sure if I really meant that or it was just forced habit.

“Of course, Mr. Kirch—“

“Call me Jean. Mr. Kirchstein is a rich bastard in Trost.”

There was a moment of pause before I heard Erwin clear his throat. “Of course, Jean. Goodbye.”

“Bye.” I sat the phone back into its grossly yellow cradle, stuffing my beanie back on my head and staring blankly at the stone for a long moment. I had never been to court—I was a virtual _saint_ when it came to the law. I had never even gotten a speeding ticket, much less gotten  _sued_. And to think that the lady I had thrown my body at was suing me after she had so worriedly made sure I was okay and called 911.

The thing about being a mental hospital is that everything is so much more stressful when you’re trapped within white stone walls.

As an aforementioned rich kid, I had never really learned how to properly handle finances. When I had been disowned and locked out of the house, I only had a fifty dollar bill in my pocket to work with. All of my savings were immediately drained by my parents, and I _had_ to learn how to manage money. That didn’t mean I was good at it. I had an atrocious case of Impulse Buying, and according to Dr. Jaeger and his infinite wisdom in the ways of the mind, he told me that shopping and buying shit I didn’t really need was a way of self-medicating. While other people drank and fucked strangers on street corners, I smoked and sat on my laptop perusing Ebay and Amazon like a shark circling a reef. I had packages at the apartment at least every two weeks, and if I hadn’t noticed I had a problem then, it was obvious that I hadn’t known how bad my problem was until I was _here_.

But while my mind was focused on finances, I realized one other _very_ crucial factor.

My job.

I quickly took the five steps to the front of the nurse’s desk, finding Hange texting on her phone and waiting for the next interval of fifteen minutes while the rest of the nurses were in the back, chatting away behind the glass door.

“Hey, Hange?” I interrupted, watching them hit _send_ before looking up at me through obscenely square glasses. “Can you do me a favor?”

“Within reason,” they answered, tucking their phone away.

“Can you look up a phone number for me? I need to make a call.”

"Congratulations! That is within reason, Jean!"

And that was how I ended up on the phone, listening to an overly-peppy woman greet, “Garrison Hotel and Lodge! What can I help you with today?”

I sighed, resting my head against the wall again. “Yeah, hey, can I talk to Marlow?”

There was a pause before her voice dropped, changing from overly-polite to curious in an instant. “Can I ask who’s calling?”

I chewed my cheek for a moment before giving her my name. “Jean.”

There was a little gasp of recognition. “Jean! Where have you been? Jesus, Marlow’s been slave driving us since you left! Seriously, did you just quit?”

I couldn’t really tell her name by her voice, but I figured I didn’t want any of my coworkers knowing my real story anyway. “Just had an accident. Can I talk to Marlow?”

“Oh my gosh! Are you okay?”

“Can I talk to Marlow?”

A sigh, clearly let down. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll forward you to him. Stay on the line afterwards though, so we can talk. It’s _so_ dead here, you have no idea.”

I was thankful when I heard the soft piano music instead of her voice, but my heart was beating a million miles an hour with anxiety. I wondered if I could bum an Effexor off of Armin, but before I could chicken out completely and just slam the yellow monstrosity of a corded phone back into its cradle, an unfortunately familiar voice snapped over the line.

“What the fucking hell, Kirchstein?!”

I flinched, holding the receiver away from my ear as he continued to scream. One of the eternal sleepers had shuffled to the doorway of his room to look at me in curiosity.

“You can’t just not fucking show up for work three fucking days in a row! You get one no-call no-show and that’s _it!_ You takin’ a fucking vacation?! Unless you’re on your damn deathbed, I don’t wanna hear it! You’re fired! Don’t bother coming back!”

I was shaking as I brought the receiver to my ear, cutting in when he broke for air. “I’m at a hospital, so calm your tits,” I snapped, my anxiety making me more angry than scared by now. “I got hit by a fucking car. All I’m asking is to have my job when I get discharged—“

“You are not getting your fucking job back, Kirchstein! You’re fired!”

The line went dead.

I let out a rattling breath and put the phone back into the cradle as if it might shatter on impact.

No job, a looming twenty-five hundred for every day I was in here, likely missed rent, a looming court date, and I still didn’t know if I had to pay to get a new insurance card from Legion or not.

“You okay, Jean?”

I let out another shaky sigh as Connie halted, a bath towel and little packet of soap in his arms to go take a shower. I just shrugged, knowing that around here, everyone could see through plastic smiles. He just gave me a serious nod, told me the shower was all mine when he was done, and disappeared into room 504.

I felt a little nauseous, honestly.

I walked around (paced like a caged animal, more like) to pass the time and let out some of my anxious energy while I waited for the shower to be free. I could hear Eren lifting weights, the click of the metal as he switched out sizes. I had half a mind to go down there and apologize, but then I remembered that I wasn’t the kind of guy to say “sorry” more than once a week, and I had used up my allowance already. Besides, apologies to Eren did nothing but make him think he was _always_ in the right.

Connie, thank god, took about six minutes in the shower, on average. He didn’t even have hair to wash, and the guy was short, so that took away from anymore skin he needed to cover. I grabbed a towel and a packet of soap and shampoo from the nurse’s station and headed in as Connie hobbled out, still in the process of putting on his shirt. I wasn’t going to complain—He had nice abs. But he was also a first-class idiot and _not_ my type.

I liked freckles and boys taller than me.

Scowling, I draped my clothes over the door to ensure they wouldn’t get wet, stepping barefoot onto the tile after sliding my slippers under the six-inch gap at the bottom of the door. The shower had taken forever for me to figure out—There were no temperature or pressure controls, but just a slick steel button that blended in with the steel wall that had a faucet sticking out of it at a little below shoulder level. It was also on a five minute timer, and sometimes you just had to put it through one five minute cycle just to get the water to be a bit warmer. Lucky for me, Connie had taken care of that, and I showered awkwardly, bumping my elbows in the cramped space and ducking down to wash my hair. The timer ended when I was only halfway through rising out the non-allergenic shampoo out of my hair, so I punched the button again, rinsed, and just enjoyed the warmth for a moment.

I couldn’t wait to get home and take an _actual_ shower for as long as I fucking wanted.

I re-dressed in the only clothes I had, sniffing the inside of my hoodie suspiciously and wrinkling my nose at it. I wondered if there was the possibility of calling my roommate so she could drop off clothes during visiting hours. But she was a bitch, so that thought survived an entire six seconds before I shook my head and ruffled a towel through my hair.

The other thing I hated about this place was that there were no mirrors. I knew that my roots were growing out, and the normally-shaved sides and nape were growing out as well, and I had been planning on getting a haircut next week. The razors they gave us for shaving were just one blade, but without a mirror, you might as well forget it. But I felt _gross_ if I didn’t shave, so I willingly spent the thirty minutes before my Ambien kicked in shaving off the stubble that had collected during the day. Everyone else here was relatively clean-shaven except for the sleepers, but Armin would get this creepy little mustache if he didn’t shave for a couple days. For being such a tiny guy with a high voice, his facial hair was relentless.

Running my fingers through my hair to at least make sure it wasn’t sticking straight up, I tossed my towel into the linen bin in the hall and idly ran a hand over the stubble that was already beginning to rear its head. I felt like a damn hobo with my style and hygiene, but nothing could be done.

Then again, Connie had been right. Taking a shower had significantly reduced my anxiety, and while I was still crunching numbers in my head about how badly in debt I would be, I found myself leaning against the nurse’s station with a little grin.

“So what’s for dinner?” I questioned, watching Krista pack up her papers and such for the day.

She looked up at me, tucked a piece of soft blonde hair behind her ear, and gave me a cheeky smile. “Meatloaf, green beans, carrots, and pudding for dessert,” she recited, looking back down to take a few loose-leaf papers out of her binder and tuck them into her briefcase.

I made a face, my smile immediately blow to oblivion. “That sounds really gross,” I muttered, wondering if I could just gorge myself on pudding.

She gave a little laugh, tucking the binder on a shelf below the desk and snapping her briefcase shut. “I’m sure it’s not as bad you think.”

I raised a brow at her, daring her _not_ to lie.

She gave a little sigh, stepping out from behind the desk and heading towards the heavily bolted door that led to freedom. “I’ll see if I can get you a McMuffin tomorrow morning.”

I blew a kiss at her. “Thank you, my lady.”

She giggled, blushed a little pink, then she swiped her card, punched a PIN, and turned a key and, just like that, she was gone.


	3. Chapter 3

Dinner was just as disgusting as I had expected, and yet I still had the audacity to be disappointed.

My poor excuse of meatloaf was lathered in at least three and a half packets of ketchup, and I upturned the salt on my overcooked vegetables, but I had gotten away with two cups of chocolate Snack Packs of pudding that didn’t taste half bad. But eating ketchup-soaked meatloaf with a plastic spoon had turned me into a five year old, and I was getting ketchup all over my fingers as I ate it with my hands because, hey, this was the last meal I’d have until morning, and starvation until then was still worse than muscling through this mess.

I was wiping my hands on recycled paper napkins when Connie slammed his tray down, face contorted into a wicked grin. Everyone looked at him, questioning, until he put his hands on his hips and struck a pose.

“I figured it out!”

We just blinked at him, and Eren drawled a “You figured out…?”

His hand slammed into the plastic table, the other pointing at Armin. “Armin and Krista are the same height!”

A few more blinks, but I was the first one to speak up.

“And you found this out _how?”_

“Armin said he’s four foot eleven, and as we all know, that’s how tall Krista is too!”

“So nobody won,” Thomas concluded, going back to stabbing his meatloaf with his spoon, using the handle as a knife. To his surprise, his method was actually _working._

Connie immediately deflated, sitting back into his seat and scowling at the plastic table that had fake wood-grain on it. “Shit, you’re right…”

“Shame too,” I said around a mouthful of dry meat, trying to force it down and into my stomach. “The pudding’s pretty fuckin’ good.”

“Yeah, and you’re hogging it all,” Connie spat, gesturing to my two empty chocolate containers and his own vanilla. “They only had three of each flavor, dude.”

I glanced around for the third, only to look over my shoulder and see Marco Bodt slowly working on his own chocolate Snack Pack as Hange gestured wildly in a one-sided conversation.

I turned back to Connie, pointing a ketchup-coated spoon at him. “All’s fair in love and pudding.”

“So is that why you keep bothering the new guy?”

I leaned forward to glare at Eren, but Armin was strong between us, his anxiety being useful for once in keeping both of our bruised faces from injuring each other further.

“Shut the fuck up, Jeager.”

“Stop flirting with everyone, Kirchstein.”

“Like hell I’m flirting with—“

“Seriously, you’re the only faggot here, so give it a rest.”

I made a move to lunge at him, planning on using my fucking _spoon_ as a weapon because I could totally crack it into a shank again, but Thomas grabbed my shoulder to hold me down and Armin immediately made himself bigger by turning to face Eren completely. Hange stopped talking and half-stood, watching me and Eren with the full intent on tackling me to the ground if I made another move. I deflated, grabbing my tray and moving to go throw it away. Thomas let me go, but his eyes were on me like a hawk.

“Yeah, go back to your fuckin’ boyfriend.”

“Eren!” Armin scolded, voice high with concern and anxiety.

But I ignored him, dumped my tray, and walked out of the room. Looking at the clock, I was numbly aware that visiting would be in two hours, and I shuffled my way into the TV room to watch the news because I needed to distract myself with someone else’s problems.

The news was always bad. That was just how the media worked in general. Bad news was good because it was attention-getting and got a big reaction. War, bombings, shootings, murder, the pessimistic predictions of the winter season’s weather, an old actor dying, and an animal abuse case. Thanks for watching, tune in tomorrow.

It may have been bad, and it may have depressed me even more than I already was, but I got what I bargained for. I wasn’t thinking about money, Eren Fucking Jeager, or sitting alone during visiting hours anymore. I was thinking about how the entire world was probably going to go up in nuclear smoke once North Korea hit their big red button, and Ferguson was about to cause a nation-wide bomb of their own.

The anchor was in the middle of announcing how many people had been murdered in Detroit that day when I saw someone sit on the far end of the couch I was lounged on, but I didn’t give them any notice until the news cut to commercial and I turned to see freckles and dark eyes.

“You know I can hear you guys at dinner, right? Hange doesn’t talk _that_ loud.”

I scowled, turning back to the TV and shifting my weight around (I had folded my legs under myself at some point and my feet were going numb) just to ignore him.

Marco was just as silent, but I could feel his eyes on me as I tried to go to my Happy Place that we had learned two days ago in recreational therapy. Unfortunately, I wasn’t much good at meditation, especially when freckle-face Marco was staring holes into my meager silhouette.

I sighed, leaning my head back into the couch as I gave him an answer that was more directed at the fluorescent lights on the ceiling than at him. “You’re in a mental hospital with a bunch of depressed, fucked up people. We do a lot of fucked up shit. I already apologized, so get over it and stop acting like the victim of a fifth grade bully. I know the first day in the worst, but if you’re still this touchy by tomorrow, you’re gonna have a hell of a time here.”

He was silent, and my eyes darted over to make sure he was still there.

He was still sitting in the same spot, but his eyes were directed at his weakly curled hands in his lap. I wondered if he was going to get all teary-eyed on me again, but he spoke with a clear voice when he finally responded. “I’m not here to make friends. Like you said, you’re not even friends with anyone. But I just…” He exhaled slowly and closed his eyes, trying to keep himself together. I wondered if he was already better than I was at meditation. “I just don’t want to make enemies out of anyone.”

I gave a bark of a laugh, planting my numb feet on the floor as the news came back on and they started talking about the eight inches of snow we were likely to gain within the next twenty-four hours. “Sorry to burst your bubble, Freckles, but Eren’s everyone’s enemy. I’m pretty sure that’s his life’s dream.”

“Not him,” he muttered, glancing over at me. “You.”

I blinked, turning my attention to him fully. “Me?”

“Yeah, I…” He sighed again, slouching backwards and looking like a passed-out drunk. “I feel a bit better now that I got in a nap, and I guess I forgive you, but… could you stop it?”

I just stared at him blankly, my mind not quite catching on just yet.

“The… the flirting and stuff, if that’s what you call it.”

“Oh.” Right. “Yeah, okay.” Great. Freckled Marco Bodt was straight.

“It just… makes me uncomfortable.”

“No, I get it,” I said, my voice sounding oddly detached as I looked at the TV again and the blue-white blob swarming over the state in the weather forecast. “I didn’t know you were straight. My bad.”

“I’m… not straight.”

I started, a weird jolt of hope going through me as I stared at him. I was probably going to whiplash with how often my head was turning during this exchange.

He shrugged, picking at his nails as he answered. “I’m more demisexual, I guess, but I like guys more than girls…”

I had no idea what the fuck _demisexual_ was, but that didn’t mean I wasn't still hopeful.

“But, uh… Thanks for listening,” he said lamely, quickly getting up and leaving the room as one of the nurses came by with a clipboard for his fifteen minute interval.

I sort of wanted to follow him, but I also wanted to find Eren and punch him again. So I just laid down sideways (the couch was warm where Marco had been) and watched the news and Wheel of Fortune with only a portion of attention until Hange announced it was time to go corral into the cafeteria for visiting hours. And so hell decided to rear its ugly head.

But that’s probably an overstatement.

Visiting was run the same way Connie had explained. The plastic hospital tables had been crudely disguised with cheap plastic dollar-store tablecloths that had little clouds printed on them (probably from the pediactric ward). There were little paper bowls with pretzels as mock-up centerpieces, and the counter where food was served was currently host to a pitcher of water, a pitcher of sugar-free lemonade, and something that looked suspiciously like either Kool-Aid or cranberry juice. Hange and a few other nurses were perched in folding chairs by the door like some kind of security, and everyone scattered around to pick how many chairs they guessed their visitors would fill. Connie picked the entire rear half of the back table, Bertholt pulled one chair near his wheelchair, Eren and Armin picked one chair on Connie’s other side, Thomas picked two, and Marco picked one near the door. Even the sleepers had one or two chairs set aside for visitors.

I just picked one of the empty seats near Connie, put my head in my arms, and wondered if I could just sleep through all of this. Watching TV for so long had made me a little sluggish anyway, and I didn't doubt my ability to sleep anywhere. It was probably a side effect of the Ambien or Zoloft or maybe just because my patch had stopped working about an hour ago and I was feeling a little touchy.

So I closed my eyes and counted how many ticks of the wall clock would pass before I fell into unconsciousness. 

Unfortunately, Hange was very loud when they wanted to be, and their hands were cupped around their mouth to serve as an impromptu microphone.

“HERE THEY COOOOOME!”

Glancing up, I saw that everyone was turning towards the door as people began to filter in. Parents, girlfriends, siblings—An Asian girl that was fucking _hot_ sat down across from Armin and Eren, and I assumed she was Mikasa. I had half a mind to seriously question my sexuality because I was staring a bit _too_ much, but some white girl with a high ponytail barreled towards our table and grabbed onto Connie, knocking him off of his chair for the second time that day.

Hange just shook their head at him, lips trembling with the effort of not laughing at the poor guy’s misfortune.

As soon as they started kissing on the ground, of course, I tucked my head back into my arms and pretended that the world around me didn’t exist for a little while. I closed my eyes tight, focused on the remnants of anxiety and something I would dare to even call my depression that were gnawing at the inside of my stomach. I probably couldn’t sleep, considering my earlier nap and the fact that I still needed Ambien to knock me the hell out when people were being loud.

Not to mention that being perceptive and eavesdropping were the two ways to survive a mental hospital, and I was presented with a golden opportunity right now.

I lifted my head, noticing with a bit of ease that no one had been paying me much attention anyway, and scanned the room.

Connie was back in his chair, holding hands with the brunette beside him as she shoveled pretzels into her mouth with horrifying speed with the other. I assumed his parents were the two older adults sitting across from them, and there were a few others with faint resemblances to Connie, which I assumed were cousins or the like. They were talking about when Connie would get discharged and their plans for what would happen after that, which I found terribly dry and slightly irritating, so I turned back to the gorgeous Japanese girl beside me.

“I’ll fucking kill them if they don’t let you out of here, Eren. Everyone. You're family, and I won't let them take you from me.”

Okay, slightly less attractive and now more terrifying. Moving on.

The man sitting with Bertholt was probably the most shocking thing in the room. He was a mountain of a man—If he wasn’t a football player of wrestler, those muscles and stature were completely useless. Even his hair was buzzed and blond like some army cut, and yet maybe the most astounding thing about him was that he was wearing a purple hoodie that said YES HOMO and he was holding one of Bertolt’s sweaty hands in two of his and speaking so softly to him that I had to try to read his lips. But I couldn’t read lips, so I quickly moved on, because the fact that it was now highly possible for Bertolt to be gay _and_ have a body builder of a very gay man for a boyfriend was a little… weird.

Thomas was next in my line of sight, and it was pleasantly normal. He was smiling as he talked to his parents, his mother taking notes when he listed all of the things they would need to take home before his discharge tomorrow. He seemed most happy about seeing his dog again, which I found a little pathetic, but then I remembered the elderly cat-mutt waiting for me at home and I was reminded that I, too, was a bit of a pathetic loser. As if sitting here alone apparently wasn’t a big enough red flag for that fact.

Looking down the row of sleepers that were struggling to even _speak,_ I saw Marco Bodt, and he was crying.

He had a wadded-up tissue clenched in his fist that he wasn’t even using to blow his nose to dab his eyes, his other hand was combing through his hair and occasionally pulling on the strands. His eyes were swollen and red, tracks of salty tears dripping from his chin as he tried to keep himself from sobbing outright. I assumed he was sitting with his father—The man had the same dark hair and dark eyes and olive skin. Marco must have gotten his freckles from his mother, but she wasn’t there, so maybe she was—

Oh. Right. Marco had said that morning that his mother had recently died.

Feeling like I was encroaching on something very personal, I quickly looked away, finding a bit of comfort watching Thomas smile about his impending freedom. I was jealous of him, yeah, but at least _someone_ was getting out of here. And considering how many times he had apparently been to a mental hospital, maybe I would see him again in a couple weeks if I was still stuck within the white stone walls of St. Maria’s.

But I could only watch Thomas and his happy family for so long before I was _bored_. And looking back at Bertolt and his weirdly gay boyfriend cemented the fact that, yes, it _was_ his boyfriend and they were currently making out. But Mikasa and Eren were still hissing at each other like puffed-up cats while Armin tried to insist that murder and kidnapping were both very illegal. Connie was putting pretzel sticks under his lips and pretending to be a walrus, at which his girlfriend gave belly-deep laughs and snorts in response to.

I filled a Styrofoam cup with sour lemonade and stood off to the side.

The two hours of visiting were just as long as I had expected, and Hange shooed all of them through the heavily-locked door to be on their way at the end of it. There were teary goodbyes with hugs and kisses and “I’ll call you”s and I felt a little nauseous once they were all gone. Hange also bid us farewell, grabbing their lunch box and a heavy binder as they ducked out, cheering a loud greeting to the night shift workers.

I knocked on the pharmacy window and waited for them to give me my Ambien before I could get caught up in all the goodbyes and the temptation of that locked door being open. I didn’t even look up when Marco shuffled past me, once again bundled in his blanket with a bottle of water as he silently went into the TV room like a ghost and curled up in one of the cushioned chairs.

I had half a mind to go in there and tell him to suck it up because his first day was almost over, but the pharmacist opened the window and gave me my little white pill. I slammed it down and headed back to my room, grabbing my little one-blade razor and trial size container of shaving cream before going to the communal bathrooms for a sink to work with.

I was asleep as soon as I stepped back into the bedroom with little bleeding holes around my jaw from a shitty razor and lack of mirror.

* * *

 

Krista Lenz was an absolute _goddess_ and I was half convinced that the bags of McDonald’s that were lined up on the usual donut-and-coffee table was ambrosia fit for the highest of gods.

Or, in reality, it was greasy, unhealthy food that had gotten cold during the trip from the staff parking lot from little Krista Lenz’s carpool with Ymir, through the late November snow, and up to Unit E for a bunch of depressed and anxious men to gorge themselves on before the nurses could change their minds about letting them have it in the first place.

“Everyone gets one sandwich and one hashbrown,” she announced as we were set loose upon the feast. “It’s not the most nutritious meal, but the doctors said that once won’t hurt.”

The fact that this was a one-time-only event got us to savor every bit of deep-fried hashbrown and cold McMuffin. There wasn’t even talking after we had all chorused a “Thank you” and Connie had gotten off of his knees from his prayer to Krista the McMuffin Goddess. Ymir had slipped out with a frappe and a McGriddle to actually do work while Krista handed out little goals slips to chewing men. I actually felt a little bad for the sleepers that didn’t get up to eat, but Hange came in and swept the leftovers away to go feed the well-deserving nurse staff instead. Sucks to sleep in.

Marco Bodt seemed a little better on his second morning, taking big bites of his food instead of the small nibbles he had been digesting yesterday. The bags under his eyes were lighter, but not gone, and his pencil was moving avidly over his goals sheet in the chair beside me. He still had his blanket, hair all kinds of messed-up, and I peeked over while he was shaking crumbs out of his hashbrown bag into his mouth so I could read his sheet.

WHAT DO I WANT TO ACCOMPLISH TODAY? _I want to discuss coping options with Dr. Jaeger and get to know some of the other patients._

Well wasn’t that fucking wholesome. I chewed my egg-and-cheese McMuffin with a bit of malice before pressing my pencil to paper and writing my own goal.

_Tell Thomas to tell his dog I said hi._

Krista actually had to wait for us to chew through greasy heaven before starting the discussion, going in the opposite order that she had gone yesterday. I got up and got some sludgy decaf coffee to prepare myself for it as she took her usual seat on the floor.

“We’ll start without Thomas—He’s speaking with his doctor and social worker to set up a discharge plan. Who would like to go first?”

Well, that explained why Ymir had actually gotten here before breakfast. She wasn't a morning person, and I had a feeling she would be snippy with me later about the disruption in her sleeping schedule.

Stirring my usual four Splenda and two creamers, I took my seat again, Marco looking at my drink with mild interest before he got up to pour one for himself. I gave him a warning glance, took a sip, and made a face to tell him how much he would probably hate it. He just shrugged, dumping a whopping _six_ sugar packets into murky black before sitting again.

Eren decided to start the discussion that morning, his mouth still half-full with a bite of his sandwich. “There’s no one new today, so do we really gotta do the damn introductions _again_?”

Krista, as always, gave a little look of disdain at Eren’s vocabulary. “We don’t. We could share our goals, or discuss the dreams we had last night?”

That was one thing I liked about Ambien. No nightmares, no dreams, just glorious unconsciousness. Half the people in this room were also on sleep meds, and I wondered if Krista had any idea how small of a crowd she was speaking to. Even if we _did_ dream, I would have bet my half-eaten McMuffin that none of them were happy or _not_ nightmares. And goals? Nobody wanted to hear about rehab plans or outpatient preferences. Marco Bodt was probably the only one with a goal that didn’t sound _too_ crazy. And my goal wasn’t even serious so why—

Marco cleared his throat softly after balling up his wrappers into his fist. Just last night, that was a tissue there. For some reason, I was staring at his hand and noticing all the little freckles that dotted the back of his hand, the one on the knuckle of his thumb, and a mole that was half-hidden by his gross yellow MARCO BODT wristband.

Krista looked at him expectantly, her pencil poised over a blank pad of paper. She smiled at him, bringing sunshine into the dull gray room. Seriously, though, the sun was _just now_ starting to rise through blizzard conditions.

Marco shifted under his blanket, wrapping it around his arms and hiding those little dusting freckles from me. I focused on my food and coffee, chewing through it and wondering what _exactly_ Marco found so interesting to share.

I wondered if he had a fear of public speaking, with how long he hesitated.

“I just… wanted to apologize for how I acted yesterday.”

What?

I glanced at him, a string of partially melted cheese hanging off of my lip that was an unfortunate oversight when I decided to look at him. Krista was frowning too, but Eren gave a little nod as if he was waiting for an apology directed at _him_.

Krista spoke up first, briefly distracted as Thomas sneaked into the room with a smile that I kinda wanted to punch as he grabbed his breakfast and sat on the armrest of the couch by Connie’s elbow.

“You don’t have to apologize, Marco,” she said gently, eyes darting across the room to get some support. “Everyone has a rough first day. I’m sure once you get to know some of the others here, you’ll feel even more comfortable.”

Armin was quick to pick up, scooting a bit forward on the couch and either not noticing or not caring that Connie reached across Eren to snatch his untouched hashbrown. “She’s right, Marco. You took the first day better than I did. I mean, I was a mess… I’m _still_ a mess. It takes a while to adjust, but… you’ll be okay. Why don’t you sit with us all during lunch?”

If I hadn’t been watching him like some freak in an art gallery, I would have missed the sidelong glance he shot me. It lasted a full second, if that, and he was soon addressing Armin again. “Thanks… I’ll join you guys for lunch. I… actually am pretty hungry today. I didn’t do much other than pick at my food yesterday.” There was a laugh, high, forced, and anxious. No one else laughed.

Connie gave a sage nod, eyes closed as he _inhaled_  his newly claimed greasy compact potato.

Krista absolutely _beamed_. “See? They understand, Marco. And since we won’t be meeting for breakfast, we’re going to have a movie in here—“

“FUCK YEAH!” Eren suddenly screamed, throwing his fists in the air and scaring poor Anxious Armin Arlert so bad that I thought the guy was going to have a heart attack in his smiling slippers. “ _Finally_ something that doesn’t make me wanna gouge my fucking eyes out!”

Krista looked at a loss for a response, to put it gently.

Luckily, Thomas piped up again. “I’m leaving around eleven, Marco, but if you have any questions, you can come to me. I’ve been here about a month, and I’ve been in and out of mental hospitals for a while.” He gave a little wink and suddenly I felt horribly territorial for no reason. “Tips and tricks of the trade.”

“The trade?” Connie muttered around the last bite of his hashbrown, not even caring about Eren as he kept rambling about “it better not be a fucking feel-good movie because those make me sick” right next to him.

Thomas looked down at him and shrugged before giving Marco a terribly charming smile. “Being a mental health patient is a full-time job.”

“A job that pays _shit_ ,” Connie muttered, staring at the empty bag of grease like it had committed a personal sin against him. “And it doesn’t even have dental.”

Nobody laughed at his joke. Today just wasn't a good day for laughing.

Krista quickly regained control of the discussion before Connie could throw a fit about nobody understanding his joke, again. “Bottom line, Marco, is that everyone here has something useful to help you. I know you’re here for grief over your mother’s passing—“

He flinched. Marco had actually flinched as if Krista had just slapped him.

“—But you can talk to Armin about that. He’s been dealing with the passing of his grandfather.”

Armin just gave a small nod and a weak smile at Marco to confirm that.

“You can talk to Thomas before he leaves about what happens when you get discharged,” she continued, not even bothering taking notes. “You can find something to talk about with everyone here. Do you want to start by reading your goal?”

He blushed. He fucking _blushed_. He blushed a lot, if twice could be counted as a lot, and his freckles stood out even more when he did. It contrasted his dark eyes nicely, and—

I really needed to calm the fuck down or jack off in the shower or _something._ God, I was gay.

He cleared his throat again and looked down, untangling his hand from his blanket to un-wad his mess of a goals sheet and McDonald’s papers. “I, uh…” His fingers shook a little bit, but he took a deep breath and looked up to Krista and Thomas beaming at him. He seemed to calm then. “My goal for today is to discuss a few things with Dr. Jaeger, and get to know some of the other patients here.”

“That’s a great goal,” Krista applauded, clapping on her own for a moment before Thomas and Armin joined in.

I swallowed the last bite of my sandwich and knocked back a mouthful of coffee.

“Does anyone have any suggestions beyond what we already discussed?”

There was silence, Bertolt stammering something intelligible, then denying that he said anything when Krista pushed him for a clear answer. Armin’s stupid smiling slippers shuffled around (try saying that five times fast) as he got up to throw away the trash he had collected from the crowd on the couch. Eren quickly kicked his feet up in his place, but Armin didn’t seem bothered as he simply sat on top of them. Eren didn’t appear to give a shit either. Weirdos. 

Krista gave a little exhale of a sigh into the silence, but she was still smiling. “You’re probably all full from the breakfast I brought in, but would anyone be interested in going to the cafeteria anyway?”

“Hell no” was the only answer, and it took me a moment to realize that I had been the one to say it, teeth scraping against the styrofoam of my cup. I shrugged at the intense staring, shooting them all a dirty look right back. “What? You guys want cat turds and soggy eggs for breakfast?”

There was a murmur of “no” that seemed to echo around the room, and Krista stood, packing her things up and heading for the door. We all watched her, a little curious as to why she didn’t push us to keep talking like she normally did. Of course, that curiosity was settled as she bumped the door open with a petite hip, arms full, and Ymir swept out of nowhere to hold it for her. To Krista’s thanks, she replied with a “No problem, babe” which immediately made the short little social worker goddess blush and all of us to silently wish that the door would hit Ymir in her smug freckled face.

But Ymir came in, face unharmed, and waved a DVD too fast for us to make out the title before reaching up to operate the DVD player that was bolted to the TV. “Okay, so the only movie options we have are animated shit for the pediatric ward, and not gonna make a bunch of grown ass men sit through the Barbie Nutcracker or Hello Kitty. I grabbed this outta my car, so deal with it, or I _will_ go get Barbie Nutcracker.”

Bertolt looked almost _upset_ that we weren’t watching a show for five year old girls.

“Then what movie is it?” Eren snapped impatiently, getting up from the couch and taking the cushion with him as he settled on the floor like a kid for story time. Bertolt wheeled himself somewhere he could see, and Armin shared the cushion with Eren as Connie spread out on the partially disassembled couch. Me and Marco stayed where we were, but I saw him bury himself back into his blanket as Connie shut off the light with an outstretched toe.

“Season one of The Office,” Ymir replied a few moments later, punching buttons on the remote until the menu came up. There wasn’t any disagreement with her choice, but there wasn’t exactly any cheering either. “You guys can watch this until lunch if you want. Group isn’t gonna start ‘til ten thirty, so you guys got a couple hours of this to digest before rec therapy. If you hate what Hange has planned, feel free to stay in here. The nurses will still be making their rounds and shit, and they’ll come get you if your doctor or social worker needs to talk to you.” She punched play, adjusted the volume, and headed for the door. She paused, however, one foot outside as she pointed a teasing finger at me.

“No making out in the dark, boys.”

I would have thrown my coffee at her if I hadn’t just finished it.

“Well there goes the fun,” Connie sarcastically moped, laying back on the industrial carpet with his head and shoulders on the cushion.

“Oh yeah, you said you wanted to fuck us yesterday. Upset you can’t get away with that in here?” I quickly shot back, laughing at the lewd gesture he sent me behind his back.

Marco made a little shushing noise, and he looked _way_ too invested in The Office.

But to each their own, and I could at least pretend to laugh along with Micheal Scott of Dunder Mifflin, but mostly I just cringed a lot. I cringed even _more_ when we were halfway through episode three and Eren was snoring and Connie threw another comment over his shoulder.

“Y’know, Micheal reminds me a lot of you, Jean. Like, if you weren’t a mess of depression and you were actually in a position of power.”

I tried to pretend that he was wrong, but I just pretended that I had dozed off so I didn't have to say anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I dare you to watch one episode of The Office without admitting that Micheal is Jean's corporate alter-ego.  
> Also, that Ferguson thing is gonna date this fic like no other.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I'm astounded at how many hits and kudos this has gotten in such a short amount of time. Also, thanks for the comments-- I generally tend to not reply because I'm a socially awkward cucumber, but I super appreciate the support and you guys are amazing. Like I mentioned in the first chapter, this is a very personal fic to me, and I'm glad to see that people appreciate the reality behind it.
> 
> I'll stop talking now, so enjoy!

I walked out of The Office-thon only ten minutes into it, not being one for that sort of comedy, knocking on the pharmacist’s window for my Zoloft. I really couldn’t help the scowl on my face as I heard Eren laugh so loud that it actually transcended the glass and wood that cut off the TV room from the hallway, and when the pharmacist opened the door to look at me, he just gave me this _look_.

Of course, I didn’t humor him with a response, grabbing my pill and slamming it down before going into the other TV room. There wasn’t much on Tuesday mornings, but I flipped to the weather channel just to use as background noise as I laid myself out on the couch and wondered if I could get back to sleep. One of the downsides to Ambien was that I still felt like I was in a half-asleep fog until I had digested breakfast. It kinda sucked, but it was better than not being able to sleep through the night when Eren decided to yell at the night staff about anything he wanted.

Honestly, I think the guy just needed a muzzle. The only one that had come close to controlling him was Armin, and on the staff, I had heard rumors that a nightshift nurse named Levi could put him in his place, though with morally questionable methods. Apparently Levi used to be in the Marines or something, but that was just a rumor. And if it was true, I wondered why someone like Petra was in a relationship with him. Personally, I had never been awake enough to properly meet the rumored Levi, as Ambien had a way of making everything from the previous night a blur, as if I’d gotten shitfaced at a bar. It kind of sucked, and I wondered if that was how the sleepers felt all the time, but it was better than the alternative.

Though, some days, I honestly wondered if being smashed to pieces by a sedan going seventy-five on the expressway would be better than this.

Ymir opened the door to the room I was in during a commercial break, and I didn’t even have the time to ask what the hell she wanted before she told me. “I’m still getting Thomas’s things ready for discharge, but Dr. Jaeger would like to see you. I’ll talk to you after lunch.”

The norm around here was to only speak with your social worker on an as-needed basis. So far, I had been sitting with Ymir once a day. I knew that we had to meet with our psychiatrists every day for follow-ups and progress reports, but the fact that Ymir had asked me to speak with her so many times was a little worrying. Was I more fucked up than the other guys here? Sure, Eren talked to Krista at least once a day, but that was because he was a raging lunatic. I seemed normal, compared to him.

I just sighed, rolled off the couch, and headed into the little round-table room that Dr. Jeager was set up in again today. I sat down across from him as he finished signing a few papers in an enormously packed binder labeled THOMAS W. before he switched it out for JEAN K. Flipping through the pages, he didn’t even so much as look at me or greet me before he got down to business.

“Have you taken your Zoloft already?”

“Yeah,” I responded, hands on my thighs as I leaned back in the plastic chair. “I took it, like…” I glanced at the clock at the wall, quickly doing the math. “Twenty minutes ago, roughly.”

He nodded, and we began the same old checklist of symptoms.

“Any suicidal thoughts?”

“No.” Well, maybe a little with that train of thought I had pulled out earlier, but I wasn’t about to admit that.

“Nightmares?”

“Nope.” Thank the drug gods for Ambien.

“Are you having mood swings?”

“No.” Yesterday, maybe, with how anxious and touchy I had gotten. Thinking about that reminded me that I needed a patch when I was done with this because I didn’t want to be that anxious again today. Then again, the anxiety could have easily been caused by my phone calls and the truth that I would likely be bankrupt when I got out of this place. But I couldn’t get all worked up now—I had to be _sane_ in front of this man.

“High fever, heart rate, blood pressure?”

“Nope.” Not that I really had a way of monitoring that.

“Are you eating?”

“I gorged myself on pudding last night.”

He looked up from the paper, the wrinkles around his eyes crinkling a bit in either irritation or concern.

I sighed, rolling my head back until my neck cracked. “Yes, I’m eating. I had two Snack Packs at dinner last night because the meatloaf was disgusting. Seriously, would it kill you to take a joke?”

“In this profession, it might kill someone,” he deadpanned, flipping a few more pages.

I let out a little bark of a laugh, but didn’t question what he had meant by that. The guy was weird, and I didn’t really wanna push him. “So am I free to go now?”

“I’ll be upping your dosage.”

I blinked, unsure of what to say as I saw him fill out a new prescription form for me. “Wait, why?”

“You’re still irritable.”

I rolled my eyes at him, leaning forward with my palms on the plastic white table. “You try being on this side and being fucking _happy_.”

He shook his head, tearing the prescription out and signing it. “You’ve gotten into physical fights twice now, and the nurses report that you have, in fact, been having mood swings—“

“Like hell I’ve been--!”

“With a higher dosage, we should be able to take you off the Ambien, as well. You can take one hundred milligrams of the Zoloft in the morning, as you have been, and we’ll deliver a second dose of one hundred at the time that you usually take your Ambien. This should help with your irritability.” He looked up at me then, my face probably a mix of a glare and fucking _shock_. He had doubled my dose just because I hit Eren Fucking Jaeger in the face? “Remember that medication isn’t going to fix everything. I’ve been told that you haven’t been talking much in groups, and you walked out of yesterday’s recreational therapy and started the fight with Eren.”

I thought I was about to lunge across the table and punch this bastard in the face. “I didn’t leave so I could beat up Eren! He asked for it!”

“Jean,” he sighed, flipping a few more pages while keeping his beady little eyes on me. “I’ve seen your case before. I imagine that this setting isn’t helping, but you need to accept it instead of fighting against it. St. Maria’s and all of its staff are here to help you cope. Mental health problems can’t be solved with medications alone like other ailments, and you need to start participating actively in improving yourself. I’m not telling you to share your entire life story in group today, but just share things about yourself. You never told anyone how you tried to kill yourself—We only know that information from the EMT’s report. Help us help you, Jean.”

“Fuck you,” was my very eloquent reply, coming out a little weaker than I had intended. I left the room then, not even looking back at the quack that had just doubled my meds and told me to _open up_. I was stomping around like a damn five year old, and I knew that I was being childish with every _slap_ my bare feet gave against the tile, but I just needed to take a five minute interval shower and call Erwin Smith to see if I could sue this place and get out.

I turned the corner around the nurse’s station so fast that I ran into Armin, who gave a rather feminine squeak in surprise.

“Sorry,” he blurted, a book clutched to his chest per usual. It was thicker than his usual volume, and there was a nurse tucking a paper bag full of books back into a cubby behind the desk that said ARMIN – 508B on it.

I probably should have just continued to my room like nothing happened, but I found myself exploding at poor little Armin and his smiling slippers as Petra and Hange just kind of _stared_.

“Armin! You’re fucking smart, aren’t you?!”

He stammered, but no whole words came out. He looked like he was about to run for it.

“Tell me why Dr. Quack in there just doubled my meds and took me off fuckin’ Ambien! I am _not_ having mood swings, and I am _not_ fucking irritable!”

“A-actually Jean, you—“

I cut him off, not wanting to hear someone that would argue Dr. Jaeger’s side. “I’m irritable because Eren pisses me off, I haven’t had a fuckin’ smoke in _days_ , I can’t even leave these walls, and the food here makes me wish I really _had_ been smeared across the fast lane of the goddamn expressway!”

Hange looked like they were about to interfere, slowly coming around the desk so they could grab me if I got physical. Petra was scribbling on her clipboard and glancing over at Hange to see if they wanted her help in taking control of the situation. Krista had come out of the back room with Ymir peering over her head at the noise, but I didn’t even _care_ that I was making such a scene.

Armin stammered again, looking over at Hange before those big blue eyes were back on me. “Jean, you—“

“You get to be discharged later this week! You’re fucking home free, aren’t you?! Tell me why I can’t go home! Tell me why I’m stuck in this fucking place!”

“Because you—“

I don’t know why, but my arm had reeled back as if I was going to punch Armin just to get out my frustration, but Hange grabbed me in an instant, my neck cracking again as they pulled me back and into a full nelson. Armin looked like he was about to faint, and Petra had literally dropped her clipboard to run over to help. Krista was just standing there with a hand over her mouth and Ymir looked completely prepared to body check me if she needed to. She had one hand on Krista’s shoulder, as if she was fully intending to shove the little social worker out of the way to do so.

The fire went out of me instantly, and I went limp in Hange’s hold, sighing out a “sorry, Armin” before they let me go, now with a slightly sore neck and a weird tingle shooting through me as my adrenaline melted away. Armin just nodded, still horribly pale and gripping his book like it was his lifeline. Hange gave me a suspicious look, still standing close enough that they could put me into another hold if need be. Petra retrieved her clipboard and pen and continued to write, one eye still focused on me as she did so.

I ignored the little crowd of patients that had forgone The Office in favor of the scene I was making, and quickly went into my room after grabbing a towel, soap, and shampoo from the nurse’s station counter.

I hit the sleek little button a total of six times for a thirty minute shower (though the first two punches had just been waiting for the damn water to heat up) that consisted of me standing under the spray with little motivation to scrub my hair or skin with the non-allergenic, unscented, off-brand stuff they provided us. Shit, _everything_ was unscented, and I was half positive that I smelled like sweaty anxious Bertolt considering how long I had been wearing my clothes and the desperate attempt at freshness that non-allergenic and unscented deodorant that came in little tiny trial sized rollers. I was a walking disaster, and my dirty clothes was like some kind of grody warning label.

But thirty minutes of running water or not, I still felt like a sack of shit.

I ate lunch on a takeout tray in the round table room just because I didn’t feel like facing anyone. I knew what I had done to Armin was wrong—Horribly so. I was never the type of person to take out my frustrations on some innocent bystander like I would have done to Armin, had Hange not stopped me. I didn’t even remember or know _why_ I had done it. I was just in some kind of blind rage, just wanting to _punch something_ on the odd chance that it might make me feel better. I had been pissed at my doctor, my situation, and myself for being so mentally fucked. I had no solution to any of those problems, though, so venting in the form of physical violence had just been some fucked up default.

Now I understood how easily Eren Jaeger had killed his father.

Okay, maybe not to that degree. I definitely wouldn’t kill someone. I probably—no, definitely –would have stopped as soon as my punch had made contact. Armin was just a guy that happened to be in the wrong place at the right time. I could have just as easily picked a fight with Connie, or gotten into another short-lived brawl with Eren. It was just the fact that it had been _Armin_ that made me the most uneasy. Armin was easily the least intimidating person here, if not Bertolt. There was no logical reason for me to punch him, other than the knowledge that he was an easy target that wouldn’t fight back, and he had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe the guilt that was gnawing at me was something akin to what Eren must feel every time he heard someone refer to Dr. Jaeger. Then again, it wasn’t like I had _killed_ somebody, so I had to stop beating myself up about it, right?

But the fact still stood that my meds were going to be doubled and I had probably just worked my way up to Eren Jaeger levels of alert for the staff. I had picked two fights in a little under twenty-four hours, and one had been unprovoked and the other had just been a weak jab that made me fly off the handle. I figured I just needed tougher skin when it came to Eren and his shitter of a mouth, but there was still the new-found alarm that I had lashed out at Armin.

It was a little scary, honestly.

I never thought of myself as a particularly violent person, and I definitely didn’t abuse anyone. Sure, I was a shit-eating teenager in the years of private school before my eventual dropout and disowning, but I had never physically bullied anyone. Threw comments around, sure, but I wasn’t the guy that shoved anyone in lockers, stole lunch money (as if rich kids even benefited or suffered from that system), or dumped a freshman into a trash can. I knew I had a temper, but I figured I had a good handle on it. When I got pissed off, I would either walk away or try to make light of it. Sometimes, if I couldn’t do that, I slammed spikes at an empty court to get it all out. Maybe it was just because there weren’t any nets to spike over or places to walk away to here that caused the little sparks of anger. Maybe it was the looming stress of money and legal issues, or just that I was in a fucking loony bin and didn’t really think it necessary that I be here.

It was becoming a regular habit to think about how much easier it would be if I had been a blood smear on grooved cement.

I spent the rest of my day to myself, and by some unearthly, godly blessing, no one bothered me. I stayed in room 504, only interrupted once when Connie took a quick one-button shower and asked me if I was going to be coming to rec therapy. I just shrugged in response, curled up in bed with a lot of stupid magazines that I had snagged from the TV room while everyone had been at lunch. A bunch of men’s health magazines, hunting catalogs, video game news—Typical Guy Stuff that was just lying around to cover up the occasional _Good Housekeeping_ or _Hour_. None of them were interesting, but everything was boring in a mental hospital, so I took what I could get. And in my defense, some of the little comics that were tucked away in _Reader’s Digest_ were actually a little amusing. Not laugh-worthy, certainly, but they at least got a weak little grin from whatever state of mind I was in.

I wasn’t good at labeling my emotions. I could tell the difference between sadness and happiness, and that was about where I drew the line. Anxiety and depression seemed muddled, most of the time, and depression blanketed pretty much every other emotion I had. The guilt in my stomach was easy enough to recognize, but I still didn’t know if it was lingering from the scene I made in front of Armin or the fact that I had hidden myself away in apparent embarrassment for what I did. I also didn’t know if my hiding was simply isolation, which was my worst offender when it came to major depressive disorder symptoms. But at least I had chewed through the poor excuse of a club sandwich for lunch, so maybe it wasn’t my depression after all. I had gotten my patch slapped on after that _lovely_ meal, so then again, maybe I was just hiding out until the thing decided to kick in and make me a little less irritable.

Whatever my problem was, it wasn’t likely to be solved by lying in bed and reading shitty magazines, but that sure as hell didn’t mean that I got up to do something about it. The solution could come to me and, around two o’clock, it finally did.

I was halfway through my second issue of _Men’s Fitness_ when there was a knock at my door, and I looked up to see Ymir standing there.

“We gotta talk, Jean.”

I scowled at her, flipping the page and looking back down at the _fascinating_ article on how butter might actually be healthier than society thinks. I didn’t even say anything to her—Let her come up with her own excuses. I wasn’t up for talking.

“The longer you resist, the longer you’ll be here. It’s a dumb system, but that’s how it works. The longer you stay cooped up in here, the longer you stay here, period. Get my drift?”

I didn’t respond, but my scowl deepened. I wondered if it was going to be my permanent expression.

“I can’t force you to talk, but I’ll be in the small TV room for the next hour. I clock out at five, and if we don’t settle a couple things before I go, you’re gonna have to talk to Hange or Levi.”

Talking to Hange was something that I had quickly learned I could _not_ do. They were just _way_ too interested in the medical field, and while I understood they were a nurse and that was their job, I could only answer so many health-related questions before I became frazzled. As for Levi—I had never even met the guy, but if the rumors about him being some hard-ass ex-Marine, I wouldn’t last five minutes being in the same room as he was. As much as I loathed to admit it, Ymir was my best option, and judging from the smirk she gave me when I finally looked at her, she knew it. She simply gave a nod, tucked her clipboard under her arm, and headed into the room she had previously indicated.

I sort of wanted to see if a paper cut from _Men’s Fitness_ could kill me if I made it in the right spot, but I just groaned, threw the magazine to the pile I had hoarded onto the floor, and shuffled my bare, cold feet into the TV room as prompted.

I let the door close behind me as I sunk onto my usual couch, folding my legs so that I could at least try to get some body heat to my cold toes, tugging the sleeves of my sweatshirt down to cover my hands. I felt like some kind of kid, sitting how I was, beanie mashed over my still-drying hair as Ymir sat on the couch adjacent to mine, ankle crossed over her knee to create a makeshift table for her clipboard. She didn’t even say anything, just eyed me with her pen poised and this _Talk or we just sit here in a tense silence for the rest of your life_ look on her face.

I heaved a sigh, looked down at my black-bundled hands in my lap, and spoke. “I don’t know why I did that, so don’t bother asking.”

She gave a small hum, and after a tense thirty seconds, I realized that was the only response I was going to get. I really hated her sometimes. Well, most of the time, but that was beside the point.

“The thing with Armin, I mean. I was just frustrated, so I… I dunno.”

She wasn’t even writing anything. Just pressing the pen into the paper to make a little dot where her notes were going to go. She still didn’t talk.

I shifted, straightening my back, only to slouch again, my fingers picking at loose threads around the cuffs of my sleeves as the pressure of the silence increased between us. “I’ve never punched someone that didn’t provoke me. I punched Eren yesterday because he was being an insensitive little shit, and just looking at him pisses me off, I guess. He made shitty comments, and I took them personally, and I know I shouldn’t and I don’t know _why_ I did, but I did. I dunno. I just guess that that, doubled with the bullshit that Dr. Jaeger sprung on me about my meds getting doubled and taking away my Ambien just set me off.

"And I guess Armin was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and, y’know, he’s a small guy. I knew I could take him, and if I punched him, he wouldn’t punch back. And he’s just so damn _lucky_ —I mean yeah, he’s friends with fucking _Jaeger,_ but he’s also friends with just about every guy here, including a couple sleepers. And this _incredibly_ hot girl came to visit him and Eren last night, and I know I’m gay as they come, but I was a little jealous. I mean, having some drop-dead gorgeous girl threaten to kidnap you just because she’s lonely? That’s, like, every guy’s dream, straight or not. And I mean, if Jaeger has a visitor, even if it’s a two-for-one, shouldn’t I have one? I’m not as big of a prick as he is, so how does he get off having more friends than I do? He fucking killed his dad, and the worst I ever did was try to kill _myself_.

"I did a shit job at it, yeah, but I tried. I know that’s what practically everyone’s here for, but what if I was dead? What if all the other yellow-banded guys succeeded? You’d be out of a fucking job, but we’d be happy. I’d rather be decomposing and having worms infect my balls than be here. The people are shitty, the food’s shittier, and I feel like a damn five year old with the way we’re practically _babysat_ in here.

"I mean, you guys come in every fifteen minutes to check we’re still breathing. Well, not you, but the nurses. You get what I mean, fuck it. And it’s nerve-wracking, knowing that they’re keeping track of everything you’re doing, how you’re acting, what you’re saying, and even if there’s _not_ a nurse in the room, they still have security cameras they monitor _all the time_ and it’s like we’re in prison. It’s like being fucking _penalized_ for having a mental illness or whatever the politically correct term is.

"I just wanna get the fuck out of here and get on with life. I lost my job, I have less that two thousand in my bank account, I’m being sued by the bitch that hit me, and now I’m getting doubled-up on the shit I was already feeling fine with. They say they don’t wanna make me numb, but with all the fucking pills, what other choice to I have? It’s bullshit, and I just wanna go back home to my cat and cigarettes.”

Her fucking silent treatment _worked_.

I stared at my hands and the threads I had pulled in a shocked silence for probably a good three minutes while Ymir tapped her pen against her clipboard. She still hadn’t written a single word down, but I didn’t need to look up at her to see the smug fucking grin on her face. I could practically _hear_ it.

“That wasn’t so hard, was it, Jean?”

My hands finally peeked out of my sleeves, but only to wipe down my face as I groaned, “I can’t believe I just word vomited all of that.”

She made a little hum that screamed _I told you so_ , finally starting to write. “Dr. Jaeger was right, though. Don’t you feel a little better getting all that off your chest?”

I didn’t respond, but I was fairly certain she knew the truth. I just didn’t want to admit it.

“Rec therapy is about over by now, but I’m doing open group at two-thirty. Tuesdays and Thursdays are open group, and it’s basically two hours of saying whatever the hell you want and a discussion based on that. It’s usually when people open up for the first time, and I don’t think it’d be a bad idea to start. Clearly you got a lot on your plate, and some of the other patients might be able to relate. Ah—Don’t gimme that face, Jean! You _know_ I’m right. And everyone else has already opened up in a previous session, except for Marco, obviously, so the floor’s mostly yours. You have to start cooperating. Just _going_ to group isn’t gonna get you out any faster. You have to show initiative that you _want_ to get better. I know it might be easier to think that you would be better off if you had gotten killed, but that kind of attitude is just gonna add days or weeks to how long you’ll be here. If you really wanna get back to your cat and cigarettes, show initiative.” She signed something on her sheet after her impromptu speech, and I was digging my palms into my eye sockets a second later, wondering if I could shove my eyeballs so far back into my skull that I could go permanently blind and not have to see white stone walls and Eren’s obnoxious face again.

Ymir’s legs uncrossed as she stood, tucking her clipboard back under her arm as her pen was speared through her ponytail. “You don’t have to come, but I know it’ll help. And I have a pretty damn good track record when it comes to me being right, y’know.”

I grumbled a “Yeah, yeah” as she left, the door clicking behind her as she went, and took a few minutes to compose myself and gather up feeble courage to leave the TV room and find Armin.

He wasn’t hard to find. He hadn’t been in recreational therapy, but was in the other TV room, curled up on the couch in his oversized robe with an equally oversized book. He didn’t even seemed to notice me come in, even when I stood in front of him, and I had to clear my throat a couple times before he looked up.

And he immediately paled.

“O-oh. Hi Jean.”

I sighed, threading fingers under my beanie to tug at a few damp hairs in an attempt to realign my courage. It was fucking _Armin_ —there was literally no reason for me to be scared, especially of him. What was he gonna do? Throw his book at me? “Look, Armin—“

“If you’re going to apologize, it’s okay,” he cut across, thumbing his current page as if it was some kind of nervous tick. He was still looking at me, but looking _past_ me. I wasn’t offended by it—I had been sitting in the group when doing something like unfocusing your eyes or trying to remember what was behind a person to make it look like you weren’t too anxious to not make eye contact with someone. I was guilty of it too, and I was busy staring at the ugly pattern of the couch beside his head as he continued. “I know I’m kind of a punching bag when people need to get their frustrations out, and it’s totally okay. I’m used to it.”

What a shitty thing to get used to.

I shook my head, giving up on messing with my hair and just stuffing my hands into the kangaroo pocket of my hoodie. “No, dude, it’s not okay. And it’s not something you should get used to either.”

“But I—“

I had already used up my once-a-week apology, but Armin was a bit more deserving of it than Marco. After all, I’d made a joke about fucking Marco. I’d also almost punched Armin in the face. You decide which is the greater evil. “Just let me apologize. I dunno what came over me, and I swear I never do shit like that. It won’t happen again. ‘m sorry, Armin. You didn’t do anything to deserve it. It was just me being a shitty person. Again.”

Armin wasn’t very talkative, but once he got going, he tended not to stop. Maybe that was why I was a little surprised when he just dropped his head and gave a little, “I forgive you. Don’t beat yourself up about it” and presumably went back to reading, because after a few seconds of silence, he turned the page.

I knew that Ymir’s open group would be in this room—The social workers were _always_ in this room –but standing around in awkward silence after I had just apologized for almost giving Armin a right hook didn’t sound very appealing. So I opted to go back to my room and put back all of the magazines I had stolen like some insane hoarder (that was half true) before the nurses could get suspicious about my isolation habits. I was about done skimming them and putting them away when Ymir loudly called, “OPEN GROUP IN ROOM 3” and I found my hands shaking as I entered the room behind Bertolt’s chair as Connie held the door open for him.

I kind of wanted to scream and go back to my room, but Ymir was suddenly having a staring contest with me, and I was _not_ about to chicken out.

If she wanted me to open up, _fine_.

Sure, I was probably doing it for myself, but I didn’t even want to admit that to my subconscious as we gave brief refresher introductions on Marco’s behalf and Ymir gave me a heavily loaded expectant look. I took a deep breath, looked at the clock on the wall, which read two-seventeen or something around that because analog was never _exact_ , and spoke to the numeric face instead of the tired ones around me.

“My name is Jean Kirchstein, and I tried to kill myself on Friday.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we've come full circle.
> 
> Next chapter's going to be a full flashback, just as a forewarning, but I'll mention it again in the notes so you guys aren't surprised/confused by it.
> 
> Again, thank you, if for nothing else but reading <3


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is super lengthy, and I apologize for that, but it would have been weird to trim it. I also wrote and edited this after an all-nighter, and I'm sure I'll come back after a decent night of sleep and try to fix little things that my half-functioning brain missed. Speaking of that though, if anyone would be interested in being a beta reader for this, hit me up yeah? Obviously can't pay you, but I get to gush about all the plans I have for this fic.
> 
> But yeah, here we go. A little flashback... thing.

I was a good kid. Granted, that was assumed from my own memories and standards. According to my mother, I had been a fussy baby that would cry at the drop of a hat and not stop until I got something _very_ specific in return. She had teased me about it, claiming that she and my father couldn’t take me anywhere, lest I throw a fit and get us kicked out of whatever public establishment I apparently disliked.

But I was a good kid, considering.

I was a fat kid, too. Morbidly obese, more like. My picky infantile taste buds had bloomed into something bland, and I could eat _anything_. And I could have it, too. I’d have two or three helpings of dinner (“Oh, darling, he’s just a growing boy!”) and then totter my fat ass into the kitchen to break out the puppy eyes for treats from the maids and our cook. When my birthday would roll around, my parents got a cake that would probably fit better at a wedding. And I would eat most of it. Afterwards, the staff would give me candy or money to buy candy with, and it was a short miracle that I didn’t actually get diabetes. I was basically Dudley Dursley, and I feel physically nauseous whenever I see my elementary and early middle school pictures. I was so blissfully unaware of my health then, proud of my chubby pink cheeks and jiggly belly.

I didn’t really notice I was _fat_ until I was shoved down the stairs by a fifth grader shouting, “Look, he rolls! It’s just like cow tipping!”

Something seemed to click in me then. I noticed the people around me more, noticed how thin they were. I noticed that I didn’t really have any _friends_ , and I immediately blamed that on my appearance. Who wanted to hang out with an obese kid with mousey brown hair anyway? Rich kids were all about appearances, and it became very abruptly clear to me that rich kids were supposed to look and act like poster boys from fashion magazines. I became horribly aware of my appearances far before puberty should have triggered that.

The simplest explanation of what I did after that was that I turned to anorexia.

I didn’t quit cold turkey, of course. I started asking to take my meals to my room, which wasn’t a lavish request. It wasn’t unusual for me to eat in front of the television, so my parents would agree without a second thought. I’d turn my plate upside-down in the trash outside in the driveway, but not before stabbing my fork into everything to make it look like I really ate. The maid would come collect my dish later when I was in my room, and there was no suspicion. I still got treats from the maids, my sweet tooth near insatiable, but I soon kicked that habit as well.

I dropped over fifty pounds in a year.

I was in sixth grade when I had my first health class, and I remember we had a lecture in February on a day that _should_ have been a snow day when the professor wrote the words EATING DISORDERS on the whiteboard. I didn’t even take notes, feeling so sick to my stomach through the entire hour and fifteen minutes of class. Immediately afterwards, I had run out of class and vomited nothing but water and stomach acid into the pristine toilet of the men’s room.

I started eating salads and going for jogs in our little gated subdivision. I was strictly vegetarian for a while, only able to eat little leaves of lettuce every day or else I would throw up. I had dropped thirty pounds by the time I saw a recruiting poster for the volleyball club, and I decided to join because it was the only sport that didn’t require tryouts or some ridiculous enrollment fee. I figured it would get me more physical activity than a jog could, and maybe playing games would help me work up an appetite.

My mother was ecstatic. The day I came home with the permission slip asking for a twenty dollar fee and her signature that I could join, she scooped me up in her big flappy arms and hugged me so much I could hardly breathe.

That seemed to be the moment that she noticed how much weight I had lost.

The look on her face was one of confusion and concern as she suddenly pushed me back, holding me at arm’s length. At the time, I had no idea what she was looking for as she poked and prodded at me. She didn’t say anything about it, but just grabbed a pen off of her desk to sign my slip and pulled a crisp fifty from her purse, telling me to keep whatever change the coach gave me.

Volleyball whipped my ass into shape like no other.

Because I was still easing into food and getting over my self-diagnosed eating disorder, it wasn’t uncommon for me to miss practices. I made excuses about being sick, when I was really just tired and worn from classes alone. A couple times I actually passed out on the court, either doing laps or just spiking practice. The last day of the spring semester, the coach decided to take us out to some ice cream shop for a treat, since we had been working so hard. Our first game wasn’t until the summer, and even then, it wasn’t really _official_. It was a scrimmage, he had said, and I just nodded as if I knew what that was.

But as soon as I gave in to peer pressure and sunk my teeth into a chocolate bar, the little fat kid in me reared his head again.

But I was smarter. I had done my research, both in and out of school. I could get myself back onto a healthy diet, cut out the sweets that I so desperately craved, and replace it with protein. I jogged every morning before school and every night after I finished my homework. I went to every volleyball practice that I could make it to, and I quickly worked my way up to right wing spiker, and I got a VIP badge after our first scrimmage for scoring a majority of our points in the final set. I ate salads, grilled chicken, tuna, and drank those gross protein shakes that they sell for almost twenty bucks a bottle. I bought my own gym badge when I had saved up the money, and I worked out there when practice was cancelled or I didn’t have anything else to do.

I had dropped another fifty pounds by the time my sixteenth birthday came around.

I had learned how to drive and got my license after two tries, but I still walked or jogged to school in the morning, having been skipping the bus since freshman year of high school, when I was thirteen. I only drove when the weather was too dangerous, which was mostly in the winter, or someone within my little area of upper-class suburbia needed a ride. My first car was a 2009 Pontiac Vibe, and it was a bit of a chick car, but I got it with black leather interior with a red exterior. It still looked like shit, but I pimped that thing out like no other while I waited for the date of my driver’s test retake.

Two months after I had gotten my license, my happy little rich life crashed and burned.

I had done research on my own, as kids do, and the internet had been a very informative place for me. Google was my best friend, since I didn’t actually have any friends (still), and it had been with me as puberty hit me hard and I became anxious about six million different things and my sexuality reared its head for the first time.

It was a muggy August day during a family meal, me pushing my steamed carrots around as my hand trembled ever-so-slightly with the fact that I _had to tell them_ …

So I blurted it out right as my father took a drink of his wine, and I remember exactly how it felt when that bomb went off.

“Mom, dad…? I think I’m… I _know_ I’m… erm…”

My father placed his glass down, giving me his full attention. “Yes?”

My mother did the same, and gave me that smile I was so happy to see, but made me feel a little sick right then. She nodded, silently urging me on. They probably thought it was something about volleyball—We were going to the state tournament in a little over two weeks, and I had been chosen as a starter.

“I’m gay.”

The picture perfect, rich, proud, _pure blooded_ Kirchstein family shattered like I had just hurled a rock through one of the stained glass windows.

My father turned pink, then red, and then _purple_ as he internalized and processed everything. His little brown mustache wrinkled up on his lip like a prickly caterpillar, and I watched in horror as his hands slammed to the table. My mother looked like she was about to cry.

“That is _not_ funny, young man!”

I felt very, very cold.

“Honey, please. You know how we feel about the gays. If you were—“

If I had known how they felt about it, I wouldn’t have _said_ anything.

“It’s not a joke,” was my detached voice, and I was having some weird out of body experience where I didn’t even feel my mouth moving when I talked. “I… I’ve been looking into it and, yeah, I’m gay. I like guys.”

My father was turning into colors I didn’t even know were possible while my mother clasped her hands on her lap and hung her head, as if in prayer. Her head shook, brown curls bouncing against her shoulders as she did so. She was mouthing something very quickly, but I couldn’t tell what it was.

My father spoke, and the eerie calm of it was a huge red flag. “I hope you know if you chose that kind of lifestyle, me and your mother will not support it.”

My mouth was dry. “I-I didn’t choose it, dad, I just—“

His hand slammed onto the table so hard that his wine glass wobbled and fell, spilling grape-red all over the white tablecloth that the maid had recently dry cleaned for us. “Do _not_ lie to me or your mother! Why have you chosen—“

“I _didn’t_ —“

That was the first time I had ever raised my voice against my father.

My mother finally looked up, tears in her eyes. “Jean-boy, please.” There it was. She whipped out the little name she gave me when I was a pudgy little toddler. It made me sick. “Why would you choose to go against your parents and your faith?”

“I don’t really believe in God or the Bible, mom.”

And that was the final nail in my proverbial coffin.

My father opened his mouth to continue yelling, but my mother—my tame, gentle, lawyer of a mother –rocked to her feet, slamming the cloth napkin that had been on her lap to the floor. “How _dare_ you reject Him! I did not raise you this way—“

“You didn’t, but I’m old enough to make my own decisions,” was my monotone argument. No matter what, I couldn’t raise my voice against my mother. I just _couldn't_.

“You don’t get to choose!” she shrieked, and I saw a housekeeper’s hand on the crack of the door, likely debating if they should intervene or not. “He made you—“

“Not according to sex ed.”

“HE IS YOUR SAVIOR!” she outright _screamed_ , and I actually flinched at the volume. “And you dare to go against Him and choose the Devil’s path!” The steam seemed to leave her then, and she sunk into her chair like a woman defeated. “Jean, please, turn back to your Father. He can help you—“

“Stop making him seem like someone real.”

Dad butted in then, looking even more outraged when I continued to argue with my mother. “I will have no Devil-worshipper in this house.”

It started to hit me then.

“No son of mine is gay, and he’s certainly not going to be an Athiest! So if that’s what path you choose, get out of this house! I, nor your mother, want to see your face again! The Good Lord has done so much for you, and you’re going to repay Him like this?!”

“I knew we should have gotten you baptized,” my mother whispered, horrified. “I won’t have an evil son. Leave, Jean.”

It was staring me in the face, but I just numbly sat there, my fork having fallen to my plate at some point of my shock.

“Don’t bother packing your things—You’ve likely poisoned all of that as well! Oh, Genevieve, we’re going to have to burn it. No one will want to buy it…”

“Leave, Jean.”

I couldn’t believe it.

“But mom—“

“Please don’t make this any harder than it is. I knew you were evil as soon as you were born, but I thought I could teach you His way of kindness.”

Would God kick his fucking kids out of house and home at sixteen? I couldn’t find the voice to ask.

“You heard your mother. Go, Jean, or I’ll have one of the housekeepers escort you.”

The housekeeper finally stepped into the room, his cloudy grey eyes dilated in fear and disbelief. “S-Sir?” he asked, addressing my father as I remained seated.

“See him out, Farlan.”

“Dad,” I pleaded weakly, feeling as if I was being suffocated and buried alive at the same time.

Farlan stepped over to me, hovering by my chair uncertainly.

“ _Now_ , Farlan. I don’t want to see him again,” my dad spat, righting his wine glass. “And get someone in here to clean this up.”

My mother gave a small nod, her hands once again clasped. She didn’t even look at me as Farlan pulled me up by the arm, but I shook free, horrified at what was happening.

“Go, Jean. I don’t want to see you until you’ve learned to accept His love and His path. I want no part of whatever evil you have within you.”

Those were the last words I ever heard my mother say to me, and they were soon the only ones I could remember in association with all of those fake-warm memories.

Farlan had escorted me to the door, but he stopped there. Lowering his voice, he asked me if I needed anything from my room. I told him about my laptop, my backpack, my gym bag—He called a few other housekeepers and maids to help retrieve everything while I waited outside, my whole body feeling numb and heavy. All they were able to sneak to me without my father catching them, however, was my backpack. My laptop and charger had been shoved inside, the books and other academic belongings removed. There was also a handful of candy—the stuff they used to give me when I was a kid –and my wallet. Farlan handed over my car keys with a sad look, and the final thing he said left no more of a cushion than my mother had.

“They’re right, you know.”

I drove until my tank hit E, pulled over to the side of the road with my hazards on, and cried for almost two hours.

The sun had already set, leaving the sky purple and stained orange, when I registered that someone was knocking on my window. Quickly sniffling, wiping my face, and manning the hell up, I turned my key enough so that I could roll down the window, revealing an old man—Not too old. Maybe his early- or mid-sixties. He was completely bald, and the only hair I saw was in the form of bushy eyebrows and a handlebar mustache.

“Run outta gas, boy?”

I swallowed the hot lump in my throat and nodded. “Y-yeah. Something like that.”

He jerked a thumb to behind my car, and I glanced up in the rear view mirror to see a mud-coated pick-up truck hauling a trailer. “I could give you a ride to the gas station. It’s an awful long ways to walk.”

There was really no good reason to deny his offer, except maybe the fear of being kidnapped by some guy in a bolo tie and a handlebar mustache. But I shook my head anyway, my finger already poised to roll the window back up again. “No thanks.”

His hand pressed on the window, holding it open as it started to creep back up. I let up on the button for fear of crushing his fingers, rolling it down again. “So you’re just going to sleep on the shoulder of I-75?”

I gave a little shrug. “Yeah. I don’t have anywhere else to go.” Christ, I almost started sobbing again.

The old guy frowned, but took a step back from my car. He seemed to think for a moment before he spoke again. “This isn’t the place to discuss why you're living in your car. Why don’t you wait here and I’ll go drop my trailer off at home. I can tow your car to the station and we can fill up and chat there.”

That seemed less risky than getting into a car with the guy, and I found myself giving him a little nod.

“Now don’t go anywhere!” he called as he turned away for his truck in a poor attempt at a joke. I just rolled my window up and watched him merge back onto the road, only to take an exit that was maybe four hundred feet away. His trailer was weirdly short and tall, but I didn’t question it, slouching down into my seat and wondering if I really could fall asleep. The likelihood of him actually being honest and coming back for me was slim, and I had realized an hour into my crying that I had left my cell phone at home. But that didn’t matter—the only numbers I had in it were my parents’ and some of the staff that worked at our home.

Their home.

It was a little over an hour, the sky now inky black, that industrial headlights shone behind me and there was a knock at my window. I got out of the car, surprised at how thankful my legs seemed to be for the stretch, and grabbed my backpack from the passenger seat without saying a word. The old guy was watching me carefully, but pulled his truck around to latch my car, and I was glad for the little bumper on the front of my car that had been installed when we towed the Vibe along on a family camping trip. I looked away while the man worked, but helped him when he needed. After the fact, both of us still standing on opposite sides of the metal bar that was now jointing our cars together, he offered me a grease-coated hand.

“Name’s Dot Pixis, but call me Pixis. You, kid?”

I noticed my hand trembled in his strong, professional grasp. The guy might have been a businessman, as comfortable with shaking hands as he was. “J-Jean… Jean Kirchstein.”

“Ah, French?” he guessed, heading for the driver’s side. I followed him, climbing up the monster of a truck and into the passenger’s spot, holding my backpack on my lap once I was buckled. “Uh, yeah. My mom’s French and my dad’s German.”

The car started with a choked groan, and I noticed there were cranks on the side of the doors, and no buttons. Weird…

“Your folks know you’re out here?”

And just like that, the hot lump was back and my eyes prickled.

Pixis glanced over at me, but probably couldn’t see much in the streetlight. He just let the question sit between us like an unwelcome guest, merging back into the lanes and towards the off ramp he had taken earlier. The silence was crushing, and I had half a mind to just turn on the damn radio, but where the radio should have been was just an empty cavity, as if the thing had been gutted. I decided not to say anything about it, because this truck had _obviously_ seen better days. There were fast food wrappers, magazines, miscellaneous papers, gas receipts, and even a book on the floor, and the whole thing smelled of dirt, cigarette smoke, and something _unpleasant_.

“I’m Cherokee and Japanese, myself,” he said in the awkward silence, flicking a finger at the dream catcher he had dangling from his rearview mirror. “Japanese on my mother’s distant side, and a hundred percent Native on my dad’s. You can probably assume correctly which culture I’m more connected to.”

It took me a moment to remember what he was talking about, and I gave a small nod in acknowledgement.

“So how old are you, Jean?”

I figured that was a safe question. There were probably ways to steal someone’s identity with just their age, heritage, and name, but anyone that wanted to be me could _be_ me. “I’m sixteen.”

He let out a whistle, turning down a dirt road. I didn’t see a gas station. My anxiety bubbled close to boiling over.

“So you just started drivin’, huh?”

“I don’t need a lecture,” I deadpanned, assuming that was what was coming. Likely something about how a gas gauge worked.

Pixis shrugged, turning on his brights as we drive over potholes and the like. “Should at least call your parents.”

I glared out my window.

We bumped along a bit more until we made another turn, and I could see a clearing and lights through the trees. I wanted to ask where we were going, or how far back the gas station was, but I didn’t really trust the lump in my throat to let me speak.

“I’m startin’ to think that your parents are a sore spot,” Pixis mused, turning up a little two-track driveway. I had never seen something this rural in person, and it was all a little… jarring.

I just made a small noise at his observation, letting him draw his own conclusion from that.

He parked the truck in a patch of dirt that served as a sort of roundabout in front of the porch of a little wooden ranch, the lights all on and comforting. He tugged the keys out of the ignition and opened his door, but I hugged my backpack to my chest and sat still.

“Gas station closes at sundown,” he explained, stuffing his keys into his pockets. “I got a guest bedroom you oughta stay in for the night, and half a dozen frozen Jimmy Dean breakfast burritos for the morning. I’ll show ya around inside.”

This whole thing screamed _suspicious_ , but I didn’t have much of an option, so I shuffled out, slung my backpack over my back again, and followed Pixis up the oak steps of the porch and through the cheap screen door that led indoors.

I had never been inside of a house that wasn’t my own, and my first reaction was that it was _painfully_ small.

There was a TV older than I was on a handmade stand shoved into the corner, and there was an old wooden rocking chair and a beige couch in the middle of the room to face it, also creating a pseudo-hall from the entrance. Pixis bent to untie and remove his boots, placing them on a horseshoe-printed mat that was home to a pair of clean tennis shoes and moccasins. I toed off my own tennis shoes onto the mat, watching as Pixis moved around. There was a coffee table shoved against the opposite wall that was decorated with pictures, trophies, and ribbons. I would have looked at them longer, but Pixis slipped down a hall and beckoned me to follow, so I did. We walked past a couple closed doors, behind one of which was a dog whining to be let out, but Pixis muttered something along the lines of “stupid mutt” before we reached the final door in the hall. He opened it, revealing a _very_ small bedroom, compared to what I was used to. It was probably the size of my walk-in closet at home.

Not mine anymore. Not _home_ anymore.

A twin bed was tucked under a small window, which was shut with plain brown curtains at the moment. The only other furniture in the room was a dresser with a mounted mirror and a table lamp on top of it, and a hefty stack of quilts on the floor at the foot of the bed. The actual bed was only made with white sheets, but I assumed I could use the quilts as I carefully balanced my backpack on the dresser.

“You can stay in here tonight. Feel free to sleep in as late as you want, but keep in mind that things around here start an hour before sunrise, so sorry if you’re a light sleeper. You’re free to use any of the quilts, so long as you fold ‘em back the way they were. The bathroom’s right across the hall from you, and I’ll be in the first room on the left if you need anything.” He hesitated in the doorway, and I noticed for the first time that he was significantly shorter now that his boots were removed. He was still tall, but less intimidating, somehow. “You hungry now?”

I shook my head, eyeing the bed. It looked _really_ soft, even though it was smaller than what I was used to. I was starting to feel the exhaustion setting in, which was probably brought on from my emotional breakdown. Crying always tired me out, so it was no wonder why my eyes felt heavy. “I think I’m just gonna sleep.” I mumbled, sitting on the edge of the bed.

Pixis was still hovering, and I said something I hadn’t said in _years_.

“Thanks.”

He smiled, showing me how to turn off the lamp on the dresser before he left, closing the door behind him.

I would have liked to say I slept well in a bed so soft and warm, but the truth was that I had dozed off somewhere around three in the morning and was woken up by a beeping microwave and bubbling coffee pot at quarter past four.

I knew I wasn’t about to be able to go back to sleep, so I got out of the down-stuffed bed in my wrinkled clothes and shuffled out of the little guest room, following the scent of coffee and something spicy until I happened upon an open door that showed me a kitchen that looked like it was straight out of some nineties sitcom.

There was a wooden island in the center, where Pixis was standing with a mug of coffee in one hand and a little flask of _some_ kind of alcohol in the other, as if he was an aging mad scientist about to create a cure-all elixir. The coffee machine was bubbling on the counter by the wall, busy brewing another pot as the microwave beeped again, having been done for a while now. There was a mess of papers all over the island and a little folding card table in the corner, where wicker-backed chairs were perched in a dining room attempt. The walls were a pale yellow that clashed with the hardwood floors that spread through the house, and I was in the middle of trying to analyze what the hell the clock read because if was just two clock arms on a round rabbit skin, no numbers, when I heard the sound of scratching.

I turned towards it the same time Pixis sat his things down, and he barely got out a “SCOUT!” before there was a ball of Brittany Spaniel barreling into my legs, strong enough to make me wobble and grab the doorframe for support as Scout, as his name apparently was, began sniffing me all over while his little stub of a tail shook so hard that his butt was hitting the island.

Pixis sighed, drinking straight out of the flask before putting it away in a cabinet over an old gas stove. “Sorry ‘bout him. If he jumps, just knee him in the chest.”

I did as instructed, and while Scout fought me for a moment, he finally settled by sitting right on my toes, his back to me as he watched his master move about the small space.

“Sorry if I woke you up,” he offered as he finally answered the whining microwave, opening it and withdrawing what I assumed was the Jimmy Dean breakfast burrito he had mentioned last night. “Are you hungry now?”

I felt a little better after my sparse sleep—No longer on the verge of tears, at least. But I still didn’t have much of an appetite, so I just shook my head and reached down to play with Scout’s ears, mostly because I didn’t know what to do with my hands and he had really soft fur. I was normally a cat guy, but for now, I could deal with some stranger’s dog.

Pixis gave me a curious look as he carried his mostly-alcohol coffee and half-soggy burrito over to the sad excuse of a kitchen table. He grabbed a fork on his way and balanced it haphazardly, sitting down and pointing at the other chair with the silverware. “Have a seat, Jean.”

I hesitated, but Scout got up and trotted over to sit next to his master, watching Pixis’s plate as if he was going to get a piece of it. Knowing that a dog sitting on my feet was the only legitimate excuse I had, I shuffled over in my socks and took a seat.

“The station opens up at dawn, but can I ask why you were out there on an empty tank?”

I shifted uncomfortably, half wishing that Scout would sit by me so I would have a reason not to look into Pixis’s wrinkled, narrow eyes. Instead, I just looked down at the beige-flecked pattern of the table, finding a few stains or spots that looked like a cigarette had burned the table. “I just ran out of gas.”

“Where were you headed?”

He had me there. I hesitated for a while—too long –and Pixis made a noise in his throat, but I didn’t look up. I answered to the table. “I just had to get away from my house.”

When he spoke again, it wasn’t with curiosity. It was with honest concern. “Mind telling me what happened? I can’t promise I can help, but I can try.”

And I swear that the smell of this place (dog, dirt, smoke, and that same _gross_ stink) was making me high because I found myself listing to him everything that had happened the previous evening, not raising my eyes from the table, and I still didn’t look up until Pixis pushed his mixed coffee at me.

“You need this more than I do,” was his only explanation, his burrito still untouched as he leaned back in the wicker chair. Scout was still eying the plate, a string of drool trailing down his chin. Gross. “Just so you know, I don’t see the damn problem with your being gay. I’m straight myself, and I know I’m old-fashioned, but what other people prefer isn’t any of my business. I’m sorry your parents aren’t as accepting, but are you sure they won’t let you back?”

I nodded. My parents were very firm when they needed to be, even if I had only faced that sternness once or twice. I had never seen them as angry as I had last night.

“And you don’t have anyone to stay with?” he asked, mostly for confirmation, as he picked up his fork and dug into his burrito. The first part was tossed to the waiting dog, however, and I tried not to flinch at the flying dog saliva.

“N-no, I don’t.”

“Why don’t you stay here?”

I stared at him, not sure how to answer that.

“I know we’re strangers and all, but think about it. I’m the only one that lives in this house now, so that room can be all yours. We’re not necessarily hiring, but we could put you to work and I could pay you for it. Hourly, eight bucks. You ever worked with horses?”

This was moving so fast and I was so tired that it took me a moment to answer. “Horses? Uh, no…”

“You know how to hold a shovel?”

Honestly, I had never worked a day in my life. But I had helped out Farlan one winter to shovel snow. “Kind of…?”

Pixis got this glint in his eye that immediately made me regret coming here with this guy.

“How about I show you the ropes?”

Mucking out stalls. That’s what I was doing.

It was hard work— _really_ hard for a rich white kid that never had to work before. But it gave me money, which was something I figured I needed, as my parents had drained my savings at some point overnight.

Pixis had just walked me around the ranch on that first morning, introducing me to the horses. He explained that he didn’t technically own any of them, but ran the place as a boarding facility to hold horses while their owners were out, or help transport them to where they needed to be. There were other employees, of course, so they helped fill me in on what I hadn’t processed that first day. I officially moved into the guest room, which Pixis once explained belonged to his late wife. All of the trophies and ribbons in the living room had been hers, and he showed me a few pictures while I was asking. She had died over a decade ago, and while Pixis acted like it didn’t bother him, his alcohol intake and chattiness made it obvious that he had been lonely for a long time. I was suddenly his best friend, and we spent nights drinking whatever spirit he decided to procure from his cabinet that night and a few cigarettes while we were watched old movies on his grainy TV.

It was a little pathetic to admit that a sixty-four year old man was my first and only friend.

I lived with Pixis for two years, and while he refused to let me pay for anything, I did as many chores around the house as I could to show my thanks. I had been fed by a silver spoon growing up, but my schedule of sleep, work, sleep had really given me perspective. I felt the better for it, and the loose chub that I had been holding onto easily melted away as I mucked stalls every morning before the sun rose and fed the finicky horses at dusk, or rode horses that just needed the exercise and Pixis needed an excuse to teach me. I got muscle, I bulked up a little, but I stayed slender. Quite a change to my obese childhood, and I was glad that I had made such a turnaround.

When I turned eighteen, Pixis sat me down and helped me look for apartments. My ideal match would be somewhere much further from Trost than where I currently was, but the risk with that was finding a job with only two years shoveling horse shit as my experience. Every morning, when I dragged myself out of bed, Pixis was always up first, and there was the day’s paper (from a different town every day, and I had no idea how he managed to get his hands on them at four in the morning) with jobs and apartments circled in red pen. I searched, I did research, and I finally found something good.

A little town called Rose, which was roughly sixty miles south of Trost. It was a small town, but it boomed in the winter thanks to a ski lodge called Garrison. A job opening had been posted for basic maintenance, twelve dollars an hour, and when I called later, I discovered that basic maintenance was shoveling paths, dishing out salt, smoothing jumps, and making sure everything was in working order. I arranged an interview with the manager, who was a guy a couple years older than me named Marlow. He seemed like an okay guy on the phone, and the interview was via Skype. Pixis’s internet was too shitty to hold a good enough signal, so I had moved to a private room in the public library, and chatted with Marlow that way. He said I had the job and a month to move, so that issued the new struggle.

How Pixis got daily editions of _The Rose Press_ was beyond me, but it never failed that I would find it on the table with a few apartments circled. I found a good one during the second week of the search, but further looking into the price (and a few _very_ long conversations with the landlord) made me realize I would need a roommate in able to afford the prices. That was when I had to turn to the internet, and as soon as I was done in the stalls, I was in the little office where Pixis kept his internet router so I could have the best signal as I searched the worldwide web for anyone in Rose that was looking for a roommate.

I found a girl named Hitch, and while I was uncertain about rooming with the opposite sex, we sent some emails and she seemed alright. She explained that she was a lesbian, and I confessed to being gay, so any awkwardness that might have emerged was immediately wiped away.

I left three weeks after the interview with Marlow, said my goodbyes to Pixis and the horses (and Scout), and packed up my little Vibe with the clothes and other belongings I had collected. Pixis gave me one of his wife’s quilts to take with me, and while I refused for so long that my throat went dry, but Pixis had none of it. He simply folded the quilt in a plastic bag from the local Kroger and shoved it in the back of my car before slapping the back bumper as I revved the engine.

"You'll be okay, kid." And it was sad that that was the nicest farewell I had received.

I found my new apartment easily, and I moved in a whole day before Hitch did. That was fine with me—It gave me time to get to know Rose, and I memorized the commute I would have to make to work. It was late autumn, and Marlow had said that the preparations at the resort would be starting soon. It mostly just looked like a big pile of dirt with a fancy hotel at the bottom, but I wasn’t set to start orientation for another week.

Hitch moved in, and long story short, we did _not_ get along as well in person. But we were both broke and young, so we didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. We managed, though, and my job at Garrison turned into all-year, ushering me into a janitor position during the warmer months. Hitch decided that Marlow was her new best friend, and that was a little awkward. Coming home from work to see your boss and roommate laughing at something on TV with a nearly-gone Little Caesar’s pizza was just… weird.

Maybe I didn’t notice it then, but that was when my depression really started. Leaving Pixis’s stables had hurt almost as much as leaving my house in Trost, and being in Rose with a roommate I could barely tolerate on a good day and a boss that hated me more and more with each time he hung out with Hitch hadn’t done me any good.

I adopted a six year old cat, white and black, and named her Sena.

That was as close to a friend as I had in Rose.

Eventually, something snapped. I don’t know what the last straw was, or why it had hit me when it did, but I just woke up one morning and, instead of going to work, I was in a hoodie and my pajamas on the edge of the expressway.

I didn’t even think, my mind comfortably numb, as I stepped into traffic.

I had been suicidal before. When I was younger, so conscious about my appearance, I thought I might be better off as a poor kid, or just dying so that no one would worry about it. My depression had always been something deeply rooted, tied in with social anxieties and crushing feelings that I never really _belonged_ anywhere. I didn’t belong as a homosexual atheist at home. I hadn’t belonged as a jockey at Pixis’s stables. I didn’t get along with Hitch or Marlow, or anyone else at work. Shit, my cat liked me, but only when she wanted to. I had nothing, and nothing to stop me.

Except for the fact that the gray sedan I had been aiming for had swerved, nicked me in the legs, knocked me down, and my head cracked on cement as cars screeched to a stop and the driver came out and called 911, so emotional that I wanted to punch her. The EMTs came for me, checked me over, and I got an MRI and a few x-rays done just to make sure I was in one piece. I was, and I fully intended to jump out in front of a bigger, faster car next time, but the next thing I knew, I was being packed into an ambulance and taken to a place called St. Maria’s.

Part of me wondered what would have happened if I had stayed closeted.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, Happy Thanksgiving/Day of Mourning, whichever side you're on.  
> And I'm gonna keep this short, but if you're involved in any Ferguson protests, please stay safe and well! The world's pretty crazy right now, so why not distract you with this piece of crap and the slightest slightest _slightest_ beginnings of these nerds and their relationship.
> 
> And in short contrast to the last chapter, here's one a little shorter.

As soon as I had closed my mouth around my pathetic life story, I began to wish I hadn’t even opened it in the first place.

The silence that followed my story was profound, and I could feel everyone’s eyes on me as I continued to pick at the threads from my sleeves. There was a pile of little black strings at my feet because of it, and the cuffs on my hoodie looked ready to fall off. But I couldn’t look up—I couldn’t meet the eyes of anyone after making myself so open and vulnerable.

I felt oddly emotional, like I was about to burst out crying, and yet I also had the familiar feeling of being numb. I wasn't proud about my bumpy past, sure, but I had gotten over it. Sharing it, however, was a whole other situation in and of itself. I felt like I was being judged, despite the fact I knew I wasn’t. That was the thing about mental hospitals—everyone had just as much of a fucked up past as the next person. But _opening up_ just made me feel so… vulnerable. Weak. As if I might shatter if the wind decided to breeze through the bulletproof window.

I was almost ready to scream before somebody spoke up.

“That sucks, dude.” That was Connie, who had sunk back into the couch with a sigh. He still looked like he was processing everything that I had eloquently word vomited in the past hour of the group session, and I had to look at my lap again when he tried to make eye contact with me because I didn't want him to see the stinging tears there. “But I… I can get that. I mean, obviously not all of it, but not belonging part I get. It sucks.”

Life sucked. That was just a universal fact.

Ymir finished writing whatever she had been writing while I had been speaking, the constant scratching of her pencil fading into the hum of the heater that was probably blowing cold air. She didn’t speak, and no one else did either. I wanted to get up and get some shitty, cold decaf coffee just because my throat and mouth were horribly dry from talking so much, but I felt like I was frozen to the spot with all of the eyes on me.

It was probably nearing five minutes before Ymir spoke up. Well, it felt like it, at least. It was probably closer to thirty seconds or so. “Does anyone have any ideas to help Jean cope?”

I glanced up after her words, noticing that I wasn’t really being stared at anymore. Connie was staring at the opposite wall with an oddly thoughtful look on his face, Eren was chewing on his thumb to the point of drawing blood again, and Armin was playing with the yellow band on his wrist. Bertolt looked like he was about to cry just out of sympathy, and he was the only one looking at me. Marco was frowning at the floor, his long legs pulled up to fold on the chair. Ymir was looking around at everyone, one eyebrow raised in silent persuasion in response to the lack of an answer.

Armin broke the heavy quiet, his voice cracking a bit with lack of use. “Have you tried reaching out to your parents since they disowned you?”

I hunched in on myself, my elbows resting on my knees. “Yeah. When I said 'Hey dad' he hung up. After that, they just ignored my calls and blocked me once they found out my cell number.”

He frowned at me, thinking for a moment. “What about Pixis?”

I shook my head. “I never got his number, and I couldn’t find it online or anything.” I had only looked once, of course, and that had been shortly after I moved out of his house.

“Do you think you could move in with him when you get discharged?” Armin ventured, voice soft and careful.

I shrugged. “I probably could, but I don’t wanna put him out of house and home again.”

Eren spoke up then, but his words were muffled by the hand he was chewing on. “Then don’t complain about havin' nowhere to go, asshole.”

“I didn’t complain,” I shot back, my voice coming out harsher than I intended. “I have the apartment with Hitch and as soon as I get out of here, I’ll probably sell my shit and go to a shelter until I pay off all my damn medical bills.”

“I think there’s a way to get financial help when you get discharged,” Armin ventured, glancing to Ymir for confirmation. She nodded.

“We do have financial help, but you can settle that when you get discharged," was all she had to say on the matter, crossing her ankle over her knee and leaning back in the office chair she had rolled in from the nurse's station.

It was a small comfort to know I would at least have a little help in the field of finances, and I sunk lower into my seat. I kind of wanted to leave the room, but I had to tolerate the weird silence for now. I had to let myself be vulnerable, or else I’d never get out of this place.

Bertolt spoke up then, speaking more to his hands than anyone in the room. “I’m sort of in the same boat as you… I wasn’t disowned, but I grew up in the foster system. No one wants a gay kid, so I never really got adopted. I got a job and lived in shelters, before I met Reiner and he let me move in with him.” He gave a shrug, his hands shaking and forehead sweating as his anxiety threatened to overtake him completely. “I can understand, to a degree. It gets better though. It sounds dumb and cheesy, but… it will. You’ve done a lot, and your weight loss and beating an eating disorder are really… I dunno. Inspiring. I know I don’t need to lose weight, but you were strong when you were only that young and that's just… I dunno. It’s something to be proud of, I-I guess.” And his anxiety won then, his head ducking as his whole body trembled with anxiety. Everyone looked away from him to give him a break, but the small crowd of eyes settled back on me instead.

“Thanks,” I mumbled, giving him a small nod in recognition. I hadn’t heard Bertolt speak very often, let alone go on a little monologue like he just did. It meant a lot, and it gave me this weird emotional feeling that kind of made me want to hug the guy. But I stayed where I was, because I didn't like hugging people in the first place. A nod was enough.

He just offered a shaky smile and went silent again.

“Bert’s right,” Armin agreed. He still seemed a little too shaken up about our earlier scuffle, unable to look me directly in the eyes while he spoke to me. “It takes a lot for you to have gotten to this point. To survive everything you've been through. You are an inspiration- And it's okay that you ended up here. We can only be strong for so long before we need help.”

My eyes stung, and I just gave a lame “yeah” in response before my throat tightened.

Freckled Marco Bodt reached over and put his hand on my shoulder.

I looked at him, partially in surprise and partially in question. I couldn’t remember the last time I had been touched in a positive or remotely comforting way since being here, and that was a profoundly pathetic realization on my behalf.

My sight blurred and I lost the hold on my emotion as soon as the situation finished processing to me. I lowered my head and put my hand over my eyes, as if that was going to prevent everyone from knowing I was crying. Marco’s hand, large and warm, rubbed at my dirty Fall Out Boy hoodie until I made a choked sob, my whole body jumping with the force of it. He pulled away, and I heard Ymir awkwardly clear her throat.

“Anymore words of support for Jean?”

“Keep being strong,” was Bertolt’s soft reply.

Armin chimed in with a, “We’re here for you.”

“Life sucks, but you don’t,” Connie offered, giving a nervous little laugh. "Sorry, that was lame as hell."

I was too busy keeping myself from fucking screaming out a sob to say thanks. Ymir dismissed us a bit early, since no one else had much to say, and I didn’t have to remove my hand to confirm that everyone had left after her. I let myself cry freely, alone in the room, until Hange came by to give me a tray of dinner and a forced smile. I didn’t even eat it, just putting it on one of the little tables in the room as I brought my knees up to my chest and fell asleep because crying and being emotional made me tired.

I dreamt for the first time in a week, and all I could remember about it was that it had involved a happy family and a Brittany Spaniel.

* * *

I was woken up by a member of the night shift so I could take my second dose of Zoloft, and I discarded my patch into the trash. I wasn’t tired, especially after such a long nap, so I shuffled into the smaller TV room where Marco was curled up in his blanket and watching Big Bang Theory reruns with Armin, both of them chatting lightly during the commercials. I took a seat on the empty couch, grabbed a  _Nintendo Power_ from 2002, and wondered if I read long enough that I could fall asleep again.

“Feeling better?” Armin piped up when his brief discussion about a Wendy’s commercial with Marco was over.

I didn’t even bother raising my eyes from the page. “Yeah. Stiff, though.” It was true, too. All of the emotion that had swamped me back in group had gone away during my sleep, and I felt almost normal. I felt relaxed, a bit groggy, and my neck felt as if someone had just tried to snap it.

There was a small laugh, and I had to look up to notice that it was Marco, and he had a hand over his mouth to stifle it. “Sorry,” he smiled. “You just looked so tired, none of us wanted to wake you up.”

I gave a little grumpy noise in response, flipping the page of my magazine. “Thanks to you guys, I think I pulled a muscle in my neck.” I shot them a glare, but kept my eyes light so they knew I wasn’t serious. “If I get even _more_ fucked up in here because of that, I’ll take your asses straight to coo-coo court.”

Marco let out a _giggle_.

It was really fucking cute.

I was about to say something about it, to make fun of him for making such an effeminate sound, but a sudden scream ripped through the halls and Armin was on his feet and in the doorway immediately.

He knew it was Eren—we all knew it was Eren. After all, no one else would scream death threats at this time of night and come barreling down the fall with a fucking hand weight as a weapon like the madman he was. I stood up on my knees on the couch to watch through the window, wondering if I really was about to be witness to Eren's second murder. He looked like a man possessed, and his target was presumably a short male nurse beside the front desk, who wasn’t even _looking_ as he read over charts on a clipboard. I had half a mind to yell at the guy to move because Eren looked _completely_ set to kill, but he closed in, and Marco looked a little pale as Armin’s hands rose up in alarm.

The short little male nurse—probably a half inch taller than Krista, if that –looked up when Eren was less than five feet away. Eren’s arms swung back, ready to slam the weight with both his physical strength and his own force of momentum, but the clipboard was simply switched to one hand, and I couldn’t even follow the guy’s movements as he acted. All I could tell was that, a second later, Eren was sprawled on his back on the floor and the man had a clipboard in one hand and the attempted murder weapon in the other.

Armin rushed into the hall to help Eren up, despite the fact that he was just growling and hissing more threats under his breath in pain.

The weight was placed behind the desk, and he resumed scanning the paperwork like nothing had happened.

“What was…?”

I couldn’t even answer Marco’s half-formed question. I was more interested in the fact that this guy didn’t even give a shit about the fact that he had just slammed a mental hospital patient on the floor so hard that Armin was trying to help him _breathe_.

It was a little terrifying, honestly.

The guy just looked _weird_. Other than his pristine, parted undercut and sunken, unimpressed eyes, it was his uniform that struck me as odd. All of the nurses around here wore beige scrubs with little badges clipped to their lapels, and I had only once seen Hange’s assistant, who wore grey scrubs. The social workers wore business casual, the pharmacist and Dr. Jeager wore white coats over polo shirts, khakis, and ties. I had never seen anyone in dark green scrubs like this man was, and it kind of made him look like a leprechaun.

I was about to make that comment out loud, but those dark eyes made immediate contact with mine and I sunk back into the couch like a child afraid of getting spanked.

His laminated badge that I had seen, however briefly, read LEVI A. in big black letters. Despite his tiny stature, all of the ex-Marine rumors suddenly made profound sense. I knew first hand just how strong Eren was, and while he hadn’t been aiming to kill me, he had still been aiming to hurt me. And considering how strong he was then, I wondered just how _much_ stronger he was when he was feeling homicidal. And to think, no matter how strong he was, a man that might have been just barely over five feet tall had knocked the wind out of him without so much as a misplaced hair.

“Wow,” Marco squeaked, looking impressed rather than the fearfulness that was probably on my face. “Remind me not to get on his bad side.”

I let out a snort, turning my back to the window so I didn’t have to look at the haunting expression of Mr. Ex-Marine out there. “Same.”

We were quiet for a while, watching the Big Bang Theory while Armin half-dragged Eren back to their shared room to put him to bed like an upset toddler. Levi eventually left my peripheral, and I assumed he was going on his fifteen-minute interval check-up. It was quiet, and I was probably correct in guessing that Bertolt and Connie had already turned in for the night. There wasn't much of anyone around, and it was nice to be able to breathe.

The night staff was a small group, consisting of Levi and only two other beige-scrubbed male nurses. One of them came in to take mine and Marco’s vitals—which I usually had to get woken up to have. All it really was was just a blood pressure cuff on your arm and a thermometer under your tongue, and then the nurse recorded the numbers and checked off a box that said HEALTHY or one marked ABNORMAL. Marco took the thermometer while I rolled up the sleeve of my hoodie for the arm cuff and I read the nurse’s badge in the awkward silence that followed as he watched the little screen on the rolling blood pressure gauge.

GUNTHER S. was his name, and I tried not to laugh at the old-fashioned name. His hair was even funnier, and in his little badge picture, his head looked like a damn turnip. But my moment of entertainment walked away as the pressure cuff was removed, and I looked up as I pushed down my sleeve to see Marco staring at my previously bared arm. Not thinking much of it, I took the thermometer into my mouth after Gunther wiped it down and placed another sterile cover over it. Once both of us were checked off on a clipboard as healthy, Gunther bid us a short goodnight and wheeled his cart out of the room to find the others to put through the same short, silent exam.

I was halfway through an article about the wonder of the Nintendo Gamecube when Marco spoke up, his voice more hesitant and shy than it had been earlier.

“Um, on your arm…”

I lowered the magazine to look at him, still slouched on the couch. “What?”

He gestured vaguely, apparently uncomfortable with clarifying outright. “You know, the… scars.”

 _Oh_.

I swallowed when I felt the earlier emotion threaten to choke me up again, staring at the black material of my hoodie that covered the marks. They were old, but some were more recent. I still had a scab on my other arm, from the cuts I had gained when I tried to give Sena a bath. The others had piled up during my starving days, back when I was using the pain of a razor on my skin as a distraction from the pain in my stomach. Even afterwards, when I was eating, but was so stressed and panicked from early adolescence when I realized that I was, in fact, gay, and tried to strengthen myself by slicing scars.

“S-sorry,” he stammered, his hands awkwardly folding under his thighs so he was sitting on them. “I know it’s not my place to ask, or bring it up. Forget I said anything.”

I just gave a short nod, pretending I was reading instead of blinking the stinging from my eyes. I didn’t even think that I could cry anymore. I was way too emotionally spent for… well, _anything_. “’s fine,” I sighed, my body feeling so heavy and tired that I just wanted to go to bed.

“You’ll be okay. You’re a good guy, Jean. I know all the joking around is just a way for you to cope, but I think opening up today really helped you. It’s okay to cry when you need to, too. We all do it.”

Okay, so maybe I wasn't as emotionally worn as I had previously thought, because my sight blurred with those words.

I had to excuse myself to bed for fear of breaking down in front of Marco Bodt.

* * *

 

The next morning, I felt leagues better than I ever had before. And whether that was because of the medication change, opening up, or getting a bunch of crying out of my system, I didn’t know. I wouldn’t admit to Ymir or Dr. Jeager that it had been making myself vulnerable that helped so much, but I felt like I owed them something now. But I wasn’t one for paying people back, so I simply stared at my little WHAT DO I WANT TO ACCOMPLISH TODAY? and wrote down _Start working on getting in line to be discharged._ Thomas had told me the key to getting out early was good behavior. It was a lot like prison in that way, but the parallels between what St. Maria’s was like and what the local prison was like were probably parallels I didn’t want to think about. I could probably ask Eren to be absolutely sure, but again, I _really_ didn’t want to know.

It was a Wednesday, the goals group was short and Connie spent most of it complaining about his parents that had bitched him out at six in the morning for not calling them the previous night, and we had biscuits and gravy for breakfast.

And it was actually _good_.

I had chewed my way through my first serving in ten minutes flat, hardly paying any attention to the discussions around me. Marco had apparently moved to our table, leaving the sleepers on their sluggish side of the room. He had taken one of the empty chairs beside Connie so he was facing Armin, and they were engulfed in a _very_ intense discussion about Lord of the Rings and the new movie that was apparently coming out. Connie and Eren were talking between them, food flying from Connie’s mouth because he was just _so_ excited about good food. For a second, he reminded me of Scout, and there was a ball of emotion in the pit of my stomach that twitched.

So I grabbed a second and third helping in an attempt to bury it under flour-dusted biscuits and sausage gravy.

I took my Zoloft after a very filling breakfast and leaned on the desk of the nurse’s station. Hange looked up at me from behind their square glasses, pen poised over a post-it note that they had been scribbling a message on. Their writing was so bad that I couldn’t even read it.

“Can I ask for a reasonable favor?”

They arched a brow, resting their chin in their unoccupied hand. “How reasonable?”

I shrugged, crossing my arms on the high counter and leaning against them. “You have a smart phone, right?”

They nodded slowly, suspicious. “Yes…?”

“Can you look up Pixis Stables and Boarding and give me the phone number?”

It took a long time for Hange to come across anything that resembled a phone number, and they grabbed a fresh stack of sticky notes to write it down for me. They wrote the number for Erwin Smith and his law firm too, since apparently Ymir had forgotten to give it to me. I stuck the lime green thing to the brick wall as I dialed the once-sunny phone, nervously playing with the curled cord as the phone rang once, twice, three times, and a fourth—

“Pixis Stables and Boarding, good morning.”

“Morning,” I greeted, knowing that the man I was talking to certainly wasn’t Pixis. He sounded _much_ too young. “Is Pixis there?”

The man hesitated, and I heard some muffled discussion in the background before his hand was removed from the mouthpiece and he answered. “No. He’s working in the stalls now. Can I take a message?”

I deflated, dropping my hand from the cord to my side. “Oh, uh… I didn’t really have one. I just wanted to chat with him. Does he… Does he have a personal phone?”

“Can I ask who this is?”

“Jean Kirchstein. I worked for him a few years ago.”

There was a ruffling of papers and more muted background talk before he came back. “Do you have a pen and paper?”

I managed to get one from Hange, the cord stretching all the way to the nurse’s station. Slapping the note onto the counter, I cradled the phone against my shoulder and readied the blue pen to write. “Okay, I got one now.”

He relayed the number for me, I said thanks, and then he hung up. I took the post-it back to the phone’s cradle to hang up and redial, punching in the number written under Hange’s untidy scrawl in my own slant. This time, there was only a ring and a half before someone picked up.

“Hello?”

It was Pixis. I could just _tell_.

“Hey,” I greeted casually, trying to disguise the jittery feeling in my stomach. “It’s Jean.”

There was a pause before a loud laugh barked out, and I heard the nervous sound of a startled horse in the background. He must have had me on speakerphone while he worked. “Jean! What’s the special occasion, kiddo?”

I leaned my forehead against the wall, thankful that my beanie protected my forehead from the cold wall. “I dunno, I just… think you deserve to know where I ended up.”

“What, are you calling from a CEO’s office somewhere?”

That ball of emotion in my stomach twitched, and I was suddenly terrified of telling him the truth. “Um…”

But he must have caught onto me, having known that I go quiet when confronted with something that upset me since the day I met him. I heard him moving around, confirming that I was on speakerphone, but there was suddenly a little _click_ and his voice sounded closer and clearer. “You’re not in jail, are you?”

“No, but, uh…” I gave a forced, anxious laugh. “Kinda close.”

He was silent, and I knew I had to tell him or else deal with having a silent phone conversation as we avoided each other. I sighed, flinched at the feedback that came through the phone, and lightly hit my head against the wall as if I could knock the words out.

“I, uh…” I swallowed, forcing that ball of emotion down my throat and back to the bottom of my stomach. “I’m at a mental hospital. I have been, for almost a week now. I… I tried to kill myself on Friday by jumping in front of traffic on the expressway.”

There was a pause, and I wondered if calling Pixis had been a horrible decision, but when he spoke again, that little ball hopped right back into my throat.

“You got some bone to pick with expressways?”

A noise came out of me, halfway between a sob and a laugh.

“I’m glad you’re getting help though. God knows I tried to help, but you walked outta here with an addiction to nicotine and alcohol. I’m not so great at handling emotions, if you hadn’t noticed.”

“I noticed. And it’s only the nicotine—I don’t drink much.”

“One’s better than two.” That sounded like he was implying something other than addictions.

“Yeah.”  I wanted to say something horribly cliché like _I miss you_ or _Can I move back in with you?_ but I kept my mouth shut as I fought tears _again_.

“You’re a good kid, Jean.”

I cleared my throat and coughed, forcing the lump from my throat as I got a hold of myself. “Yeah, well enough about me. How are the horses?”

* * *

 

When I hung up after a thirty minute conversation, I was smiling, and I shoved the post-it note into the pocket of my hoodie while Marco walked by with Armin. He gave me a smile, Armin in the middle of an animated discussion with him. I smiled back, and there was this weird flutter in my stomach because _fuck_.

Marco Bodt was cute, hot, and every other variation of the word, and I was a thirsty, pathetic son of a bitch that had just laughed on the phone with a man pushing seventy. My anxiety yesterday had made me forget how desperately large of a crush I had on Marco when I didn't even  _know_ the guy, and it just occurred to me that he had  _touched_ me. That meant we were friends, right? Well, maybe not friends, but at least acquaintances. Or something.

I wanted to make a friend out of Bambi-freckled Marco, if I couldn’t have more than that. But, as was the norm for me and my social anxiety and depression, I was not good at making friends. He and Armin had already hit it off perfectly, but I didn’t know anything about Lord of the Rings except that there was a character with a weird voice that called the ring _precious_ or something. And the small talk I had overheard last night had been nothing before what fast food they wanted to eat when they got out, or their TV-watching habits. I didn’t know how to strike up a conversation with Marco Bodt without answering his awkward question last night about the scars on my arms. I didn’t really want to talk about that with _anybody_ , because I really did regret damaging my body like that. It was the only thing I was unhappy about in my appearance, and that was saying something.

So I decided not to follow after them, heading into the round-table room and startling Bertolt, who was working on a crossword puzzle with a highlighter to write with because we couldn't have sharp pens or pencils. I just gave him a smile in apology, and he started staring at me as if I had sprouted a second head.

“Are you… okay?” he asked, watching me carefully as I grabbed a deck of cards from the cabinet and sat down at the table he had rolled himself and his hospital grade wheelchair up to.

I shrugged, shuffling the cards quickly. “I feel fine,” I answered casually, laying out the skeleton of a game of solitaire.

Bertolt was still staring at me, his hand shaking with his sweat-coated highlighter like usual. Seriously, the guy was _always_ sweating. “Wait, didn’t you have your Zoloft doubled?”

“Yeah, I had a hundred milligrams of it last night instead of my Ambien.”

He gave a little nod, lips twitching into a smile. “You seem a lot better today.”

I just shrugged and started my game while Bertolt went back to his crossword puzzle with sweaty fingers. I broached small talk with him a few times, but it mostly was just me answering for the word he was stuck on, or him pointing out a move I could have made. But it was progress, and I was starting to notice that Bertolt was more than The Anxious Sweaty Guy in a Wheelchair.

I figured I could get into this whole  _friend_ thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, if you guys wanna gush about the direction this is going or talk about the jeanmarcos, hmu on twitter @apljooce or tumblr @degradedpsychotic because i need friends lmao


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I am so sorry to all of you, like myself, that had to work during Black Friday and the horrific weekend that is retail hell. Second of all, huge huge HUGE shout-out to [Skire ](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Skire)for being my beta reader and being awesome and finding all the spots where I missed words because I do that a lot. I dunno. English is weird.
> 
> You all know my contact info by now. Follow me. Talk to me. Listen to me whine about JeanMarco overtaking my life. Ask me about crazy mental hospital stories, because I have a few. (And yes, Eren is actually 99.9% based on a real patient. They were scary as hell.)

Two hundred milligrams of Zoloft was probably too much for me.

My cheerfulness put off more than just Bertolt, and Connie had made a comment that I was acting like I was drunk. He was probably right, but I was so fucking high that I didn’t care. My leg bounced whenever I had to sit down, and I fidgeted whenever I was told to be still. I had so much energy that I thought I was going to scream if they didn’t let me out into the two feet of snow that had fallen in the previous days to romp around in it like I was five. I was laughing at shit that wasn’t even funny, and being a Good Mental Patient in front of Dr. Jaeger was one of the hardest things I had ever done.

Okay, two hundred milligrams was _definitely_ too much.

“No suicidal thoughts, no mood swings, my vitals are fine, I went to group, and breakfast was fucking delicious,” I recited to him before he could even open his mouth, my hands clasped tight around my knees under the table to keep them from bouncing. I just wanted to get out of this room and run around the halls like a fucking lunatic. If I was in a mental hospital, I might as well act crazy, right? When in Rome, and all that, no matter how stereotypical or offensive it was.

I felt like I was a toddler that refused to be put down for a nap.

Dr. Jaeger scribbled a few things before he pulled out a blank prescription form. He didn’t speak as he filled it out, but looked up when my hands gave up and _both_ legs started pumping. It was torture, sitting in this fucking uncomfortable chair, squirming under a clinical gaze. He held the key to me getting out of here early, and if I didn’t make a damn good impression, I’d be stuck here for weeks longer than I wanted to be.

“I’m cutting you down to one hundred and fifty. You still won’t be on Ambien, and you’ll take the full dose before bed, starting tomorrow. Understand?”

I groaned, sitting on my hands to keep myself from gesturing wildly. “Are you _kidding_ me?”

He ripped off the prescription and set it aside, flipping through my binder and making notes here and there. “Two hundred is obviously too much for your system, but one hundred is too little. We’ll see how putting you in the middle turns out.”

So I was a guinea pig while they shoved pills down my throat and waited for it to work.

I leaned forward, still sitting on my hands, my chin hovering over the plastic of the tabletop. “Seriously, how much longer until I get discharged?”

“It all depends on when we can get your medications straight. If the one hundred and fifty works, you can be out of here in one week,” he said flatly, signing a couple pages without looking at me.

One week. I could handle one week. Seven more days of shitty hospital food and Eren Jaeger’s bloody thumb.  One hundred and sixty-eight hours of Ymir dropping hints about banging Goddess Krista and sweaty Bertolt eating his meals in his rooms because he was too anxious to be in the cafeteria with us. Ten thousand and eighty minutes of trying to act like a Good Mental Patient in front of Dr. Jaeger and listening to sob stories in group therapy.

Okay, so I was good at math. Rich kid private schools could do that to a person.

I was dismissed after Dr. Jaeger asked me the “Do you have any questions?” and I replied with, “Can I go outside?” and he hadn’t even bothered to reply, just giving me a _look_ and shooing me out so Marco could go in after me. Marco smiled when I left the room, and I beamed back in my serotonin-overdosed glory, and he gave a little laugh before he entered the room and left me in the hall.

I liked his laugh.

If I was ever going to tell him that I desperately wanted to kiss him or blow him until he said my name in the communal bathroom, now was the time. Now, when I was so high on antidepressants that I really didn’t give a shit about repercussions. This was the opportune moment, and if I didn’t take action, I’d be stuck at an absolute standstill.

But talking to Marco Bodt was a lot more difficult than I had initially expected.

For one thing, he was never alone. I mean _never_. He was like a girl trying to go to the bathroom, but every female in the room followed.

If he wasn’t having impromptu book clubs with Armin, he was chatting and joking around with Connie. If he wasn’t with Connie, he was speaking softly to Eren as if he was walking on egg shells, as if he was a fucking therapist. If not with Eren, he was sitting with Bertolt as they did crossword puzzles or word searches. If he wasn’t with any of them, he was either in session with Krista or trying to cheer up an ever-groggy man who had just slept for twenty-three hours straight. At lunch, he was so completely devoted to his discussion with Armin that he and Connie actually had to switch seats so Eren and Connie didn’t have to lean into their words and I stared at my soggy lo mein so I wouldn’t stare at Marco straight across from me.

It was weirdly ostracizing, that everyone suddenly loved Marco’s company, and I had this weird feeling in my chest whenever he smiled or laughed with someone else.

The first chance I had to talk to him was in recreational therapy, when I decided to sit at the table he had chosen alone while Hange handed out sheets that were photocopied out of a coloring book because apparently coloring was therapeutic and shit. Whatever. I was five years old today.

I got a picture of Cookie Monster surrounded by cookies and it made my stomach turn, so I demanded to trade it with Marco’s Oscar the Grouch. He gave me a smile, grabbed a blue crayon from the twenty-four pack between us, and started to color. I grabbed the green and went to work, focusing way too much on staying within the lines with my nose only a couple inches from the paper. My leg was still bouncing, but slower now, and I forcefully stilled it whenever I was worried about my hand being unsteady.

I said I had a chance to talk to Marco. I never said that I actually _talked_ to him.

Hange turned on a little old radio to softly play oldies rock, most of which was the Beatles and other music I didn’t recognize, but I glanced up to switch crayon colors and saw Marco’s lips mouthing the words to some slow rock song about being alone forever or something. I thought the artist was Queen, because they had that weird almost-opera vibe to them, but I wasn’t focused on that. I was focused on Marco. It was horribly cheesy and like the script out of a fucking chick flick straight-to-DVD release, but my breath skipped a little bit when he mouthed the words _somebody to_ _love_ in perfect time with the song and he blindly reached for a crayon and his hand touched mine.

Jesus fucking Christ on a crucified stick.

I had it _bad_.

My hand shot away from his, taking a purple crayon with it. He glanced at me, briefly alarmed before he closed his lips, gave me a polite little smile, grabbed the brown crayon, and started work on the mountain of cookies.

I colored the trash can purple because I didn’t want to put the crayon back and admit that I had only taken it so I didn’t have to accidentally touch Marco again. Apparently, no matter how much serotonin I had in my system, I didn’t have the guts to even say _hi_ to Freckles McGee over here. I still felt good enough that I would probably belt the lyrics to this stupid song at the top of my lungs if I knew the words. But I was too fucking nervous to say anything to Marco because he talked to everyone else so effortlessly, yet we were sitting here in silence as he mouthed the words to the new song that came on when Queen faded away.

He had a freckle on his upper lip like a misplaced Monroe beauty mark.

I clenched my teeth and kept coloring the fucking trash can _purple_.

“Good use of creativity,” Hange complimented as they slinked over to our table, looking at mine and Marco’s pictures individually. “Try not to use the whole crayon,” they teased Marco, letting us know there were more sheets in the cabinet if we wanted to color more of them before they slinked away again.

Marco looked over at my picture and laughed.

I felt my ears get hot and muttered something vaguely defensive.

“No, no,” he insisted, shaking his head and swapping his brown for yellow to make some new types of cookies. “I like it. It makes him seem less depressed.”

I shrugged, setting my now-flat crayon aside as I looked at it. “It’s okay, I guess.”

“I like it,” he repeated, and I knew he was being honest.

My cheeks flushed and I grabbed the brown to color this trashy idiot’s fucking eyebrows.

“How are you feeling today, anyway? You’ve been acting really different, but Bertolt said you got your medication changed.”

Was this really going to be our conversation topic? He could talk to everyone about some kind of shared interest, but when it came to me, he only asked how I was doing and commented on my meds. I would have thought he was just being fake, just exchanging pleasantries, but there was something buried in Marco’s voice and his bottomless eyes that told me that he _cared_.

“I feel high as fuck,” I finally confessed, needing to look away from him to find my voice. There was a little laugh at the end of my confession, a little forced and a little amused in the way that only a guy with major depressive disorder and a too-high Zoloft intake would say. I was in a damn mental hospital. _How are you feeling?_ was a dead-end question.

“Being high is better than being low, right?”

I looked up to see him forcing a smile at his navy blue Cookie Monster, his fingers playing with the paper wrapping around Goldenrod Yellow.

I frowned, and blurted out a “How are you doing?” that I actually meant. Marco had been a mess on his first day, but after a day of adjustment and a good night’s sleep, he had turned a one-eighty to smiles and earnest laughter.

He seemed a little startled at the question, glancing over at me before he quickly continued coloring, though with harder strokes. “I-I’m okay. Dr. Jaeger said he doesn’t want to put me on any medication until I absolutely need it… I just need to learn how to cope through grief without being harmful to myself. I… am feeling a little better though. Krista said I could probably get discharged by Sunday.”

My blood turned a little cold at that last part, but I didn’t voice my jealousy. “So they’re making you stay here just for coping skills?”

It was his turn to give a semi-delirious laugh. “Yeah, I guess so. That and they just wanna make sure I’m not gonna hurt myself again.”

I lowered my voice so Hange couldn’t hear us over the music and the chatter at the other tables. “Are you going to?”

He blinked, his hand pausing in his strokes of Goldenrod before he turned to look at me. “Going to…?”

“Hurt yourself,” I clarified, leaning forward a bit so he could hear me.

The corners of his lips twitched upwards, and the freckle on his upper lip stretched a bit in the movement. I tried not to stare at it, but looked to his dark eyes instead. Dark brown, the color of damp earth. The color of the bark on the pine trees that dotted the landscape of the apartment complex in Rose. The color of black decaf coffee before I violated it with cream and sugar. Deep, dark, and understanding. A color I could get lost in.

I looked back at the freckle on his lip.

“No,” was his simple, honest answer. “I couldn’t do that to my dad, for one. I’m too young to go.” Emotion flashed in those dark eyes of his, and he blinked a few times to chase away threatening tears. He looked down at his coloring, but it was as if he didn’t even see it. “My mom was too young…”

I didn’t know what to say.

“We knew she was going to die, I mean… Her cancer was really bad. It started out as breast cancer, but then it was in her heart and liver and…” He swallowed, thickly, and I noticed a wet spot appear right on Cookie Monster’s big fuzzy paws. “We knew she wasn’t going to make it.” His voice was breaking, and Hange was watching us. “She got off treatment, and they told us it would only be a month, and that was if we got really lucky…” He swallowed again, and I saw his hands tremble. “She only lasted nine days.”

Fuck social anxiety. Fuck disarming Marco Bodt and my thirsty fucking crush on his freckles, tanned skin, and deep dark eyes.

I reached across the small table and put my hand on top of his. He dropped the crayon, and I expected him to pull away and just start sobbing, but his hand turned upside-down and his fingers laced with mine. His other hand wiped at his face like a child, and he gave me a shaky smile. Marco was a five year old today, too.

“S-sorry,” he mumbled, sniffing loudly.

“You shouldn’t apologize for your feelings.” That was something we had discussed on my first day. Never deny your feelings, never try to reason them. Accept them. It’s okay. “It’s normal.”

He gave a trembling smile and took a slow breath.

“Better high than low,” I repeated, giving his hand a squeeze. “You should talk to Krista or Dr. Jaeger about at least getting put on a low dosage of something. It might help.”

He shrugged and squeezed my hand back.

The contact felt _right_.

But he cleared his throat, pulled away, and went back to coloring Goldenrod cookies in silence.

My hand was warm for the rest of the day.

* * *

 

As the day went on, my high got lower. The Zoloft filtered through my system, and by the time I was picking at overcooked spaghetti with watered-down sauce, I was right back to complaining about the shitty food and scowling at Eren when he made a comment about me and Marco holding hands in recreational therapy like girls.

My ears went hot, and Marco awkwardly changed the topic to something I hadn’t even realized to notice.

“Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving, isn’t it?”

I shrugged, shoving a spoonful of spaghetti into my mouth. Maybe if I ate a lot of it at once, I would only have to deal with the taste for half as long.

Armin froze, his spoon balancing a wiggly-looking piece of sugar-free, lactose-free, gluten-free, flavor-free, fat-free tofu. He blinked, as if he was trying to process it, and his spoon rested on his plate with a heavy frown. I didn’t have to ask about the change in demeanor—Holidays were always hard when you were doing them without a staple of the family. He likely missed his grandfather.

I couldn’t imagine how he or Marco must have felt, and it made my throat close up as soon as I had forced down my mouthful of noodles.

Connie groaned, prodding at his burnt garlic roll. “Shit, it is, isn’t it? Do you think they’ll have an extra visiting time for it?”

Marco looked hopeful, but Eren crushed his expression the same way he did the bread in his mouth.

“Fuck no. Why would they do that?”

“It’s a family holiday,” Connie offered, pushing his bread to Eren to take. It was rare to see Connie forgo _any_ kind of food, and I wondered if Eren and I were the only ones that weren’t torn up about the holiday.

I didn’t have a family to celebrate with, and Eren likely didn’t either. Armin would be missing his too, now that his grandfather had passed. Marco would be missing his mother. Connie was the only one with a family still connected and alive.

I wasn’t hungry anymore.

“Sorry for bringing it up,” Marco mumbled, pushing his noodles around on his plate. He forced another smile, and it looked as painful as it felt. “Maybe we’ll get a good dinner tomorrow, though.”

“We’d better,” Connie muttered, scooping up the spaghetti on his plate and giving it a disgusted look before forcing it into his mouth.

“The food isn’t that bad, asshole,” Eren snarled, dabbing his bare plate with the bread Connie had given him. “Be thankful it’s not military rations.”

I wondered just how tough prison had been on Eren, but that wasn’t a discussion I wanted to get into, _ever_.

The conversation drifted away from the touchy prospect of Thanksgiving and families, and we talked about food and what we would do for a slice of pizza and a box of Chinese. I profoundly declared I’d become a pizza whore, and Connie whole-heartedly agreed with me as we tossed out the remainder of our meal and I went to go take a five-minute-interval shower.

This friend thing, I was learning, wasn’t as hard as I thought.

I already got along well with Connie, but I sort of _had_ to, considering that we shared a room. He snored like a chainsaw, but not nearly as bad as Eren apparently did, but at least he admitted it and took it in stride. He said I spoke French in my sleep, and I kind of doubted that, but whatever. We joked around, we gossiped, we complained. We did typical Mental Hospital Stuff and there wasn’t anything wrong with that. Making friends with the others was harder. I had connected a little with Bertolt, which I considered my largest accomplishment, and Armin seemed to have forgiven me for my almost-attack the day prior. He smiled at me if we passed in the hall, and he made steady eye contact when he could manage. Eren, I doubted I would ever be friends with. I still couldn’t look at the guy without getting irritated. I didn’t really _want_ to know him either. Having connections to a murderous, bipolar, homicidal man did not seem like a good idea.

And then there was Marco.

Freckled Marco Bodt and his neon socks and deep dark eyes.

I stood in the shower, even as the water timed out, staring at my hand as if I had just realized I had one. I thought maybe it might move and I would just start jacking off like a hormone-driven teenager, but I just flexed my fingers and remembered the way Marco’s long, freckled fingers had intertwined with mine. I remembered the heat, the way he squeezed my hand like I was his lifeline. I remembered yesterday, when his hand had ghosted on my arm and rubbed my shoulder in an attempt to comfort me after I had spilled my guts to fellow depression sufferers and Ymir.

I didn’t want to fuck Marco anymore. I still did, but _fuck_ seemed too harsh and _making love_ was too corny. I wanted to be close to him. I wanted him to say my name. I wanted to kiss every freckle on his skin and trace smooth constellations among them with my tongue. I wanted to see those dark eyes light up and hear him talk about his mom without crying. I wanted to see him be happy, and I wanted to be the cause of it. I wanted to roll over in my stupid hospital bed and see him sleeping in the bed beside me instead of snoring Connie with his arms and legs loose from the blankets. I wanted to laugh with him and gossip with him like we were old women in a nursing home. I wanted to kiss  that freckle that hovered on his Cupid’s bow. I wanted to run my hand through his hair and feel the softness of it, and maybe try to tame that wild bit of cowlick that stuck up from sleeping on his pillow.

I just wanted to hold him and see him give more of those real, honest smiles.

I had it _so_ damn bad.

I slammed my balled fist onto my forehead, still stark naked in the rapidly cooling dryness of the shower, wondering if I could beat the thoughts out.

I barely knew him. Mental hospitals weren’t where you fell in love. Marco Bodt was demisexual, whatever the fuck that meant, and he didn’t like me flirting with him. All I knew about him was that his mother had died of cancer and… No, that was it. That was all I knew.

But I still liked him. I still liked him, and I hadn’t had a crush on anyone since I sucked some guy off in the locker rooms after a volleyball scrimmage. Even then, I didn’t think that was a crush. I wasn’t good with emotions. I didn’t know the difference between wanting to see someone smile because they were a good person, or wanting to see them smile because I had kissed their perfectly placed freckles. I didn’t know.

I didn’t know _him_.

I watched an episode of Modern Family with Connie in the big TV room and went to bed after Gunther took our vitals.

I didn’t dream. And if I did, it was nothing but a calming warmth within a deep, endless darkness.

* * *

 

Marco wasn’t in goals group on Thanksgiving morning while the Macy’s parade was muted on TV. A couple sleepers had rolled out of bed for it, and we went around to introduce ourselves again. My voice sounded hollow when I said, “I’m Jean Kirchstein and I have major depressive disorder.” I told them I had been here for six days, and suddenly I couldn’t breathe.

I had been in a mental hospital for six days.

One hundred and forty-four hours. Eight thousand six hundred and forty minutes. Five hundred and eighteen thousand four hundred seconds. I had been wasting away in the white stone walls of St. Maria’s for that long, and I hadn’t even noticed.

I swallowed two cups of decaf coffee and listened to a sleeper snore in Marco’s usual chair while Bertolt struggled with the bravery to introduce himself, Krista giving him a soft “You don’t have to” in an attempt to comfort him. I left early to get a patch on my arm and waited for the cafeteria doors to open. I tried not to scowl over the fact that I wasn’t getting my Zoloft until after dinner.

Marco wasn’t at breakfast either.

The eggs and cat-shit sausage didn’t have any flavor.

After breakfast, I pulled the crinkled post-it note from my pocket and dialed Pixis’s number just for a distraction. For some reason, Marco not being around was nagging at something in the back of my brain and making my stomach uneasy. Maybe he was just tired. Maybe he wasn’t feeling good. Maybe he was talking to Dr. Jaeger about medication. Maybe he was—

Pixis answered on the third ring and I could immediately tell he was way too drunk before ten in the morning.

“Happy Day of Slaughtering Native Americans,” he slurred. I wondered if he had been drinking since four.

I grimaced a little, leaning my back against the wall and cradling the ugly phone between my cheek and shoulder as I attempted to un-crinkle the little lime green piece of paper just for something to do with my hands. I had all kinds of anxious energy, and I wasn’t sure if it was because of Marco’s absence or the fact I hadn’t had my pills in twenty-four hours. Either way, messing with a sticky note was better than having a panic attack. “How drunk are you right now?”

“Not enough,” was his gruff answer, and he paused for a minute. I could practically see him upturning the bottle straight into his mouth.

Thanksgiving was a day to be with family. Pixis didn’t have a family. He had an empty guest room and horses that he didn’t even own. He had workers that worked holidays and hated him for denying paying them time and a half for doing it. All he had was a Brittany Spaniel, a cigar, and alcohol.

I didn’t know what to say to him.

“So how’s the looney bin?” he slurred. I didn’t take offense to the term. I was guilty of using it too.

“Kinda sucks. They keep fucking with my meds.”

“That ain’t the only thing wrong.” Pixis could read me like a fucking book, even over the phone, and it was kind of creepy.

I swallowed, and then turned towards the wall as Bertolt rolled by. “I…” I took a breath and tried to think of words. “I think I have a crush on one of the guys here.”

He let out a low whistle, and I winced from the way it screeched through the phone. “That’s the worst place to find a boyfriend, kiddo. Next t’ prison, I guess.”

I frowned, resting my head against the wall. “I know…”

“But you said you _think_. You’re not sure if you like him?”

“Yeah.”

“Clarify.” I heard him swallow more booze.

I needed a drink.

I licked my lips, chewed on them a bit. Pulled off a chapped, dry piece of skin from them. “He’s hot. Like, really hot. I’m probably just horny though because I haven’t done anything or anyone in a long time, but… Now, I just…” Someone walked behind me and I froze, heart hammering. It was just Connie, telling me to hurry up so he could call his parents. I didn’t continue until he slouched away. “I care about him. And I dunno if it’s a crush or just a weird friend thing.”

Pixis gave a thoughtful sound, then a little laugh. “You know what I thought the first time I met my wife?”

“Uh, no.” He never talked about his wife beyond the trophies and ribbons he had on display in his tiny living room. I wondered again just how incredibly drunk he was. He wasn’t one to reminisce, especially about _her_. 

“Same as you. She was hot as all hell. I had a one-night stand with her, left my number on her pillow. She called me three months later and we started a relationship as friends. We fucked again, dated for a week, and I proposed.” He laughed again, but I could hear the longing and the grief in it. My chest felt tight. “Unless he’s some kinda serial killer, make a move before he’s gone.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but Pixis and his drunken slur cut me off.

“You remind me o’ me when I was young. Just leggo of everything else and admit to yourself what you feel. If ya like the guy, tell ‘im. Life’s short, Jean. Do something about it.”

I swallowed, suddenly choked up.

“Ya can’t be great if you don’t take risks. Same with happiness. Damn it, look at me. I’m on the downward slope of life and drinking so much damn booze that it’s a wonder my liver’s in one piece. I ain’t happy. I don’t have a chance to be happy again because I’m runnin’ outta time. You have time. Make the most of it.”

I nodded, and then realized he couldn’t see. “Thanks…”

“Keep your chin up, kiddo.”

The line went dead and I put the receiver back into the cradle.

I didn’t know him. I barely knew him. I knew his freckles and his eyes more than I knew how his mind worked. I didn't know his favorite color, his favorite food, his favorite animal. Did he have siblings? Did he have pets? Did he live with his dad? Was he happy, outside of the grief?

I wanted to get to know him.

I turned around and asked Hange which room he was in when they turned the corner from their fifteen minute rounds.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Third of all, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, because the next one isn't as... happy. So far, at least.   
> (Don't listen to La Dispute while you write, kids)
> 
> As always, thanks for reading, kudo-ing, and commenting! Seriously, nothing motivates me more than knowing people like this thing.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to the lovely [Skire](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Skire) for being my beta reader!

I couldn’t watch romantic movies. I couldn’t read books with characters that loved each other. I’ll tell you why, too. It was pretty simple, kind of pathetic, but at least I’m a guy, so I don’t usually have to explain why I don’t like the romance genre. Romance isn’t a Manly thing to like. The only realistic excuse to actually enjoy them was that a girl dragged you into the theater. Or whatever. I just didn’t like them, period.

The first reason, and the most pathetic, is that romance reminded me of how alone I really was. While the guy got the girl and swept her off her feet and they had a family and white picket fence and a dog, I was lying in an empty, cold bed, with only three phone contacts. One was Hitch, the other was Marlow for when I called in sick, and the other was Domino’s Pizza because I had dialed it so much that it just made sense to save it. The only one I could call when I was upset was Domino’s, and they knew my order by heart. Green peppers, Italian sausage, pepperoni, and two cups of garlic sauce. It was ridiculously pathetic, but knowing that someone on the other side of town knew me well enough to recite my order by heart made me feel at least a little less alone. And the delivery boy they sent was always the cute redhead with spotty freckles that was a foot taller than I was and all degrees of gangly. I’d slip him cash, tell him to keep the change, and binge. Then I’d throw up, because the loneliness would eat away at me and suddenly I couldn’t stomach my favorite food in the world. I was scared I’d get fat again, scared I’d be a cow again. If I was fat, I couldn’t have a boyfriend. No one would like me if I was fat. I’d be sitting here in the dark watching romance movies until my eyes fell out and I hated myself so much that I spontaneously combusted with the pizza I had eaten anyway. It was really fucking pathetic.

The other reasons were simple, and I didn’t mind fessing up to those. For one, I couldn’t handle the secondhand embarrassment. The movies were always so cheesy and the leads in the books were fucking stupid. I’d get frustrated with the characters, throw a book against the wall and leave it to rot between my white plaster wall and my bed, kick the OFF button on the TV because I didn’t want to watch any longer. It pissed me off while I was upset, which pissed me off even more, and that lovely cycle could potentially lead to a very volatile reaction.

The last and biggest reason was that I couldn’t handle people crying, fake or not.

I could handle a tear or two. I could handle that, because it meant that the person was fighting against it. They didn’t want to be crying, but they had to. It was the only vent they had, and humans had tear ducts for a reason. A tear here and there, splattered on Cookie Monster’s paws. Just that was fine. But sobbing? Letting out the wails of a dying, crumpling, grieving soul? I couldn’t handle it.

But that was how I found Marco Bodt.

He was hunched over in his room, back to the open doorway and sitting on the furthest bed, facing the bulletproof window. He had his hands wrapped around his chest and gripping at his ribs as if he was trying to hold the emotion in, but I could see the flex and twitch of his body as he choked and hiccuped in order to keep the screaming sobs at bay.

I had half a mind to just turn around and pretend I didn’t see anything, but I looked down the hall and made eye contact with Connie cradling the phone to his ear. He made a few _very_ confusing gestures at which I just stared in utter befuddlement before he clapped his hand over the receiver and said, enunciation exaggerated, “Go see what the fuck is wrong with him, dude.” He went back to the phone, sarcastically apologized for swearing, and I turned back to the room that Marco sat in, lights off.

Bare feet make noise on laminate tile, and Marco jumped and curled in on himself further, as if he was scared of me. He looked so fucking broken, and that was saying something, considering that I couldn’t even see his face. His hair was more messy than it usually was, sticking up in all directions from a lack of being washed and his fingers combing through it too much. His flannel shirt was crumpled and rumpled and riding up a bit in the back, but I swear I wasn’t staring at the little band of Fruit of the Loom boxers. It wasn’t fair of me to think this was attractive, because it wasn’t. It was a man breaking down with no one caring enough to try to soothe him. It was a man letting down his walls and struggling to keep the flood at bay with nothing but a mop. It was sad, it was ugly, and it was too late for me to just walk away and pretend I didn’t see him. I had both feet inside of the room, over the threshold. I was going into a saltwater battlefield and I had no idea what to do.

Pixis’s words came back to me.

Life is short.

I had to fucking _do something_ about it.

“Marco?” My voice cracked with nerves.

He hiccuped and his fingers knotted in the plaid green flannel on his sides.

I didn’t know what to do.

Today was a bad day. It was Thanksgiving. It was his first Thanksgiving without his mother alive, and he was stuck in white brick walls with the rest of us. The closest he could get to his family was a phone call, but maybe that wasn’t enough. Maybe he just needed time to himself. Time to go through the grieving process all over again, because he wasn’t just missing his mom. He was missing his entire family right now. I was stepping in on his private time, and that was really fucking disrespectful. I saw what was wrong with him. My job here was done.

“Sorry, I’ll… leave you alone,” I awkwardly excused, taking a step backwards, back into the hall, back over the threshold. I could just go watch TV until lunch. No big deal. There was probably a football game on so I could be all Manly and shit.

Marco turned in his spot and gave me the most pleading expression I had ever seen on a living creature in my fucking life, and that was saying something.

“Stay.”

It was more a command than a request, and his voice was thick with tears. His face was soaking with them, salty and unable to dry before another tear tracked down and dripped from his chin. He looked like a kid that had been kicked out by his parents. He looked like me, sitting in my car on the side of I-75, half hoping that a semi would veer and hit me, shove me off the overpass, kill me.

My chest hurt.

“Y-you don’t have to,” he sniffled quickly, pulling his feet up to plant his heels on the mattress, wrapping his arms around his knees. He was wearing neon orange socks that sort of glowed in the fluorescent lights that poured in from the hallway. “Sorry for being noisy.”

He looked so broken, so lost, and he reminded me so much of myself.

The only difference was that he had a father to go home to. His mother was gone, but he still had his father. And it wasn’t like he could just stumble upon his mother by walking down the street of his childhood home. She was gone for good. My family was just at a distance. I wondered how much more it hurt to know that there was no way you would ever see your mother alive again.

It must have hurt so much worse.

My cold feet slapped and stuck to the linoleum as I crossed over, sitting down on the other bed. The mattress was blue, stiff, empty, and wrapped in sanitized plastic. It was the bed that Thomas had been in. It felt strange to think about that, but I looked away from the deep navy of the mattress and back at the breaking man across from me. Marco was staring at the window and shaking as he tried to hold himself together. He was fighting the tears, I knew. Maybe he was embarrassed.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” That was the first thing I said, and it was after I had stopped nervously fidgeting on the bed, because the stiff plastic made this horrid crinkling noise whenever I did.

“I wanna go home,” he weakly offered, pressing his forehead to his knees.

I gave a stiff and awkward smile, forced it, even though he couldn’t see. “We all do.”

No one wanted to be here. No one ever wants to be in a mental hospital. There was something horribly dehumanizing about it. There was never enough privacy and too many medical terms. The diagnoses are just guesses, because the only way to diagnose a mental illness was to go through a symptom checklist. Are you suicidal? Are you tired? Do you eat regularly? Do you cry at nothing? Then they slap a colored band around your wrist, and that’s it. You stay locked up until they decide you’re well enough to leave and not kill yourself, or anyone else.

I didn’t want to be at St. Maria’s either, but I didn’t have a home to go back to.

“You said that you might get discharged soon, though. So maybe you won’t be here much longer,” I offered lamely to his silence. I knew it wouldn’t help, though. What did Sunday matter if today was Thanksgiving? Today was for families. Today was for watching football with your obscure uncles and cousins while the women complained about it in the next room. Today was for crowding around a table that might have buckled under the weight of so much food. Today was for napping on whatever surface was available while the kids in the family drew on you with Crayola markers. Today was a day to love your family, to be thankful for them.

My family was probably sitting at an extravagant feast that the staff had cooked for them, giving thanks that I was out of their lives.

Fuck them.

I said the wrong thing. It wasn’t anything new to me, but when Marco’s sobs started up again and he hiccuped and shoved a palm over his mouth to smother his screams, I froze up. I didn’t know what to do. He was tearing himself up from the inside out, and it was such a turn for him. I had seen him cry before. I had seen the grief on his face on his first day. I had never seen him smother screams.

But through his fingers, I heard three words.

“I miss her.”

I was up in an instant. I wasn’t one to offer comfort—Holding his hand while he cried all over Cookie Monster had been the only experience I had with it. I knew he needed it, and he would fall completely apart if I didn’t do something. I had been comforted before, and I figured I could use that as some sort of experience to work with. But there was no booze around, and no cigars either, so Pixis’s method was out of the window. And I couldn’t call for a pizza, which was my own self-remedy, so I did the only other option I had.

I did what Farlan had done to me when I was a little waddling kid and I had scraped my knees on a smooth cement driveway. When my mom was too busy in her office and my dad scowled and told me to walk it off. When Farlan waited until my dad’s sharp eyes left and he scooped me up, pudgy first grader and all. When he sat me on the garden bench and gave me a Reese’s cup and matching Transformers band-aids on my knees but I couldn’t stop crying because of the pain and the neglect because I wanted Mama to kiss it better but Farlan just gave me this little awkward, sympathetic smile and—

I sat down next to him, put an arm around his shoulder, and pulled him into me.

The reaction was immediate. I half expected him to pull away, to shoot me some dirty look. I might have crossed some kind of boundary. Patting arms and holding hands were kindergarten things, but giving a sympathy one-arm hug on the edge of another dude’s bed when I already confessed to thinking he was cute and come out as gay, well. That had to cross some kind of line in the world that Demisexual Freckled Marco Bodt lived in. Shit, I didn’t even like _hugging_ people.

But as soon as my arm had gone around him, his feet hit the floor, his face buried into my shoulder, and he had one hand gripping the front of my hoodie like a fucking lifeline.

And he _sobbed_.

I had seen a lot of people cry in my day. I had seen my mother lose it at my grandfather’s funeral when I was seven. I had seen a girl cry in middle school when she got dumped because “Oh my god we were so in love!” I had seen people cry at homeless puppies or sad movies. Shit, _I_ had cried a lot. I cried over getting disowned, I cried through panic attacks, I cried when Scout wouldn’t stop chasing my car as I drove out of Pixis’s driveway for the last time. I was a fucking crier when I had to adjust to radical changes. I was experienced with crying and the different ways it might have happened. One tear at a time, steady streams, hyperventilating. All of it.

But I never heard someone cry as hard as Marco.

He tried to speak through the tears, through the hitching breaths that teetered on the dangerous ledge of hyperventilation. All I could make out was the mantra that he missed his mom so damn much, and something about his dad. His eyes had actually screwed up tight with the force of his tears, which flooded from his swollen eyes and onto my hoodie, along with snot and whatever else Marco’s face was leaking. I just held him, rubbed his back, didn’t even bother saying it was okay. He was grieving. He was lost. He missed his mom.

I just fucking held him because there was nothing else I could do.

Eventually, the sobs softened, his eyes now closed from exhaustion rather than emotion. There were bags under them, almost hidden by the red swelling caused from so many tears. I was starting to worry that he was going to get himself dehydrated or something from how much he was crying. But he was getting tired, and the position was way too awkward, so I just. I laid down with my head on his pillow and it smelled like the permanent stink of sterilized hospital and he curled up with me with his head on my chest, sniffling and whispering apologies through his sobs.

I just told him that it was okay, that emotions need to be felt and released, and I rubbed small circles on his shoulder blades until he fell asleep, utterly exhausted.

I pressed my lips to his messy hair, but it wasn’t a kiss. Just… something to soothe him. Yeah. He wouldn’t know anyway. He was sound asleep, one arm around my waist, his face smashed against my chest and my hoodie bunched up like a pillow. His pinky was grazing the minuscule space of skin between the hem of my hoodie and the band of my pants and I tried not to focus on it.

I was just comforting him. We were friends.

Hange came to get me for lunch, and I tried not to show how cold I was when I slid out from under Marco’s sleeping grasp.

And of course, I regretted leaving him for the cafeteria.

Lunch was fucking disgusting. I wasn’t even sure what the mysterious brown meat on a slab of bread was, but I ate it. I ate it and asked Hange if I could take a serving back to Marco because the guy hadn’t eaten all day, and if he was anything like me, the exhaustion that came with crying was also tied with hunger. I felt like I shouldn’t even bother bringing him the shit, but gross mystery meat was better than no food at all.

He was still asleep when I got back, but he was now hugging his pillow. I sat his plastic take-out box of gross hospital food on the shelves that held paper bags of his clothes and walked right back out again because I knew if I stayed for a second longer, I would have tried crawling back into that stiff bed.

As a friend. Or maybe to get in his pants. I didn’t know. It was just a horny crush. I was too young to be in love, and I barely knew the guy.

His mom was dead, he wanted to go home, and that was all I knew about Marco Bodt and his demisexuality. He had it so fucking hard. I hated myself for picking on him the first day, but I was just that kind of person. I had done it to Thomas when he had showed up, too. I did it to the new guys.

But Marco just missed his family, and he was trying to get through the grief without adding more weight to his shoulders.

I called a phone number I thought I had forgotten.

“Kirchstein household, may I ask who’s calling?”

I didn’t know why I called that fucking mansion of a house that I had grown up in, smothered and stifled by Bible-thumping parents and showers that I used as sanctuaries while I had panic attacks. I don’t know why I did it. Maybe because it was Thanksgiving, and maybe it wouldn’t be as Christian-heavy as Christmas, or maybe it was just because they were my family. Marco didn’t have his family right now—He had choked out in broken sobs that his dad was doing overtime at work and he couldn’t get a hold of him. My family may have disowned me, but I still had one.

Of course, the fact was that living was easier without them. I didn’t have to walk on eggshells anymore, because I had found out that the world outside of Rich Kids and Rich Parents was very accepting, and half of them were gay too. I could breathe easy outside of that fucking mansion that had been passed down through generations. I didn’t have to listen to my father hiss in German, knowing that I didn’t know how to speak it. I didn’t have to listen to my mother pray in French, pretending not to understand, even though I knew she was praying for me to not grow up into a monumental fuck-up of an only child. Shit, maybe they had adopted a kid since I left. Some orphan from a third-world country to make them seem charitable. Maybe I had been replaced by a purebred King Charles Spaniel to complete the High Class European wet dream.

My throat closed up when the voice spoke to me again.

“Hello?”

I swallowed. Breathed. If Marco can get through the day, I can too. Of course, he had broken down, but he had held it in so well up until that point. I could do it too. I could be strong for once in my life. “Is this the residence of Lenz Kirchstein?”

I was fucking pathetic.

A waste of space.

“Yes, may I ask who’s calling?” Great, he was losing his patience with me. Probably thought I was a fucking solicitor.

Pathetic. Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic.

Toughen the fuck up.

“Excuse me? Are you still there, sir?” _Sir_. He spat it out like a fucking slur.

“I—“

“You are aware this is Thanksgiving, sir? Today is hardly the day for business calls.”

My throat was closing tighter. Faster. The mortar between the painted bricks blurred in front of me.

_Pathetic pathetic pathetic._

“I-it’s not a business call,” I forced out.

I couldn’t talk to them. Not my mother. Not my father. I couldn’t hear their words. I could hear them echoing just fine. I didn’t need to hear it again.

**You know how we feel about the gays.**

_I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m a fuck-up. I’m sorry._

“Then who is this?”

**I, nor your mother, want to see your face again!**

I fucking hung up.

**Leave, Jean.**

_Patheticpatheticpathetic_.

I didn’t go to recreational therapy, or open group.

I took a shower, but by the time the five minute timer had ended, I was curled up on the cold tile and trying to breathe.

The thing about mental hospitals is that there is no privacy. Absolutely none. So was it really a surprise when, after fifteen minutes, there was a knock on the door and one of the male nurses asked me, “You okay in there, man?” and I could only give a choked noise in reply? It was a surprise to me, let me tell you.

I had gone from high as a fucking kite to this. Bottom of the goddamn barrel. It was like freshman year all over again. Don’t look at boys when parents are around. Brush your teeth five times in the locker room so they don’t smell the sex in your mouth. Wear a scarf to hide the one and only hickey you got in May.

I was panicking, and I couldn’t stop. I didn’t know what I was panicking over—My family, probably. Being lost. Not belonging. Just wanting a fucking out of this stupid life and stupid panic and stupid body. I wanted out, but I couldn’t go anywhere. I was trapped.

And I fucking hated it.

I knew what had triggered it. I hadn’t had a panic attack in a couple months, and I was proud of that. The last time I had triggered one was when Sena’s tests came back positive and I was worked up over vet bills, but then they told me they had just gotten the numbers wrong. Just a mistake. All of that anxiety and those extra shifts at work just because some quack of a vet had mixed up my baby’s tests with another fat cat’s.

This anxiety attack would not go away with that kind of closure, because it sure as hell wasn’t a mistake that my parents had kicked me out and cut all ties.

I couldn’t go back to being a happy little fat kid with a fifty dollar bill in his pocket. I couldn’t even go back to being the unstable kid that shoveled horse shit at four in the morning while the horses were trying to sleep. I couldn’t be the glorified janitor that threw salt on the sidewalks of Garrison Resort and Lodge while bundled in five layers because I hated Michigan winters.

I was twenty-two with nowhere I could call home, stuck inside of a mental hospital.

I couldn’t go back to my parents. There was just no logical way they would even let me back in. They had probably fired Farlan, since he had been the kindest to me. I hadn’t talked to him beyond one phone call I had made home after my first morning mucking stalls, when I asked him if it was safe to come home yet. He told me no, and that it never would be safe for me to come back. I accepted that, but Pixis’s little ranch house that was filled with dog hair and mementos of his deceased wife wasn’t home either. I felt like a guest, just like the room I slept in. It wasn’t home. I wasn’t comfortable. When I moved to Rose, I had been comfortable for the full day before Hitch had arrived, and then things had gotten shitty. I started camping out at McDonalds or the local library just to get away from her. I worked extra hours at work both for the money and the time away from home that it granted me. That little two-bedroom apartment sure as hell wasn’t home. I didn’t _have_ a home. I didn’t have anywhere to belong to.

And that hurt the most.

 _Pathetic_.

It shouldn’t have upset me so damn much. There were others that had it worse. I told myself that, curled up in the corner of the shower. I told myself that Eren had it worse. Armin had it worse. Bertolt had it worse. Connie had it worse. Marco had it worse. I didn’t deserve to break down right now. It wasn’t rational. It wasn’t logical. I had to be a perfect patient and act sane. I couldn’t break down like this. I had to be strong and I had to fucking tough it out.

I wondered if Marco was still asleep, and if I could hug him.

I didn’t like physical contact. I just didn’t. Stuff like hugging, holding hands—It was weird. It was weirdly intimate, but platonic at the same time. I’d rather slap a dude on the ass than shake his hand—Does that make me weird? Growing up rich hadn’t given me manners. Why the fuck would it have, when I spent most of my childhood stressing over my appearance and what was going on in my head?

“I’m fine,” was all I replied to the male nurse, whose shoes were pristinely white under the gap in the door, patiently waiting the five minute span that I had been in complete silence.

“I’ll be back in fifteen, and if you’re not out by then, I have to get someone else involved.”

I didn’t say anything as he walked away. I just toughened up like a fucking man and I got out of the shower and got dressed and went to recreational therapy—

No. I didn’t.

I stayed in the shower until the nurse came back with Hange and they made me get dressed and tell them that I was just anxious over my family and the stress of not belonging and wanting out of here but not having anywhere to call home and then I ended up crying in front of them, but I sniffed and wiped my face like a damn man. And I skipped out on recreational therapy, where they were making little turkeys out of popsicle sticks, and I doubted that I could even steady my shaking hands well enough to hot glue them together. I wanted to cry again, but I held it together, fingers trembling. So I took a breath and I sat on Thomas’s plastic-wrapped bed while Marco snored because being alone in my room had made my anxiety worse.

I left the room when my anxiety threatened to make me panic all over again. I had a full two minutes of calm before my heart began to race, my palms began to sweat, and my tremors shot all the way up my arms. What if Marco woke up? What if he thought I was being creepy? What if he yelled at me? What if what if what if.

I sat in the TV room by myself and just stared at the wall, knees to my chest and bare toes flexing as my hands picked at the strings at the hem of my Superman pants. I wondered if I got a long enough string out of them if I could strangle myself. I wondered if I could drown myself in the toilet. I wondered if I could smother myself in the couch.

I wondered if anyone would have missed me if I had jumped out in front of a faster sedan or bigger sedan. I realized no one would. I realized I had no friends, and Pixis had probably assumed I was dead a year after I had left. I realized that my parents would rather have me dead than alive. I realized that if I was dead, Erwin Smith and his law firm wouldn’t have to worry about twenty-five hundred dollars. I realized that if I had killed myself then, I wouldn’t be taking up space here. I wouldn’t need help. I would just be lying in the morgue, waiting for someone to identify me as I began to rot. No one would notice. Just a bug on a windshield. Run the wipers and you’ll forget. No one would fucking notice. Hitch would put Sena up for adoption and sell all my shit. She would love to have the apartment to herself. No more Jean taking up space, no more Jean panicking in the shower, no more Jean being a depressing fuck. She would get over it. She would forget. She wouldn’t even notice. No one would.

Well, maybe Domino’s would notice, once their business started tanking without me.

Funny how that was the only thing I could think of that mattered. Green peppers, pepperoni, Italian sausage, and two cups of garlic sauce.

_Fucking pathetic._

I would have sat like that for the rest of the night. Shit, I would have slept there, my stomach in knots and needing to make the conscious effort to breathe. Inhale, exhale. Repeat. Count. Three on the exhale, three on the inhale. Breathe.

But Connie Springer darted in, grabbed me by the hood, and near-literally dragged me to the cafeteria for dinner.

I made half a dozen excuses and arguments as he pulled me along the linoleum, my hands grabbing at my collar so he wouldn’t actually choke me, feet back-peddling in an effort to keep myself from falling. I told him I didn’t feel good, that I wanted to sleep, I wasn’t hungry, I didn’t like turkey, and a million over half-assed partial truths in an attempt to get him to let go. But, of course, Connie knew me. He knew the signs when I started to isolate. He knew the signs of a panic attack.

I was thankful for him, but not in that instant.

He only let me go to drop me into my regular seat, and by the time I had straightened my hoodie and stood up, he had slammed a tray down in front of me and sent me a look that could kill. My anxiety spiked and I couldn’t breathe for a moment.

“Eat, Jean.” His voice was stern. Firm. Commanding.

**Leave, Jean.**

I wanted to vomit and punch him in the face in the same moment.

I don’t know how long we stared at each other. All I knew was that Armin cautiously sat down beside me, looking like he was back onto the defensive in the event that I turned violent. I could feel Hange’s ever-watchful gaze on the back of my neck, my scalp tingling under my beanie. Connie wasn’t even blinking, his palms pressed flat against the table, leaning his body forward so he could slap me if he needed to. The food on my tray steamed, distorting my view of him, but I didn’t dare look at it. I kept staring at him, making my face as blank as possible.

I didn’t want to eat. I didn’t want to sit down for Thanksgiving dinner with a bunch of mentally unstable men with hospital bands around their wrists. I didn’t want to pretend that I was thankful to be here, to get food and a bed and medication. I didn’t want to sit down and act like it was just a Thursday and there was no reason that anyone should be upset.

Everyone had a reason to be upset.

So why was I the only one in this room that felt sick?

“Eat, Jean,” Connie repeated, eyes narrowed, voice stern. He said my name like Gene, like everyone does. Not with an accent in perfect French like my parents did.

**Go, Jean.**

I sat down and picked up my plastic fork.

Connie gave a little relieved smile and left the table to get his own meal.

And just like that, it was normal. Armin and Eren chatted about trivial shit, and Connie put in his two cents whenever he didn’t have a mouthful of food, which wasn’t often. Even Bertolt had come down, parking his chair on my other side, at the head of the table. He didn’t participate in the conversation, and that was okay, because it was a huge step that he had even made it to the cafeteria for more than just picking up a tray. Everyone seemed a bit brighter today, gushing about how good the food was. I could even hear the sleepers shuffling out of their seats to get seconds, and then thirds.

I was eating corn one kernel at a time.

It was a Thanksgiving dinner, by textbook definition. There was turkey, stuffing, corn, mashed potatoes, gravy, and even cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie for dessert. It wasn’t overcooked, but moist and delicious and perfect.

But I wasn’t hungry.

I pushed my corn over to Armin, who ate it all up. His dinner was just a bowl of white stuff that looked weirdly like oatmeal. I didn’t ask what it was, because if anything had the capability of making me less hungry than I already was, it was that. I gave my bread roll to Bertolt, who was picking at his because it had a spot of flour on it that he thought was mold. I ate one spoonful of potatoes and tasteless gravy and thought I was going to choke on it. My panic had not subsided. It had only gone down to something vaguely manageable.

I didn’t even bother dumping my tray as I left the room and headed to the pharmacist’s window to get my stupid fucking Zoloft so I could try to feel human again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It'll get better, I promise.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this chapter is a bit short, but I think you'll all appreciate what I crammed into it <3  
> Again, thanks to the lovely Skire for beta reading!

One of the things they teach in mental hospitals are coping skills. They teach you how to deal with your emotions how they come. How to breathe, how to clear your mind, how to _focus_. It was meditation, but with the medical term “coping skills” slapped in front of it. I wasn’t good at meditation, but sometimes, I was _too_ good.

I had crawled into bed after taking my Zoloft, on top of the covers with the lights on so I wouldn’t be tempted to sleep, and focused on my breathing. Breathe in, count to three, breathe out. Count how many breaths there are. Relax. I tried to calm myself, to get my heart to beat regularly and my stomach to untie itself. It was a hard battle to win, and I tried to think about random things to keep my mind off of anything that would trigger me further, meaning that I was thinking about my parents every five seconds because it was hard _not_ to.

I didn’t even realize I had fallen asleep until I had woken up, heart racing, breath ragged, body in a cold sweat.

“S-sorry! I didn’t mean to wake you up!”

I was disoriented, scared, and I was half certain that I was in my room and the maid had come in to get my trashcan but I had fallen asleep with my laptop still opened up to some gay chat site because I was trying to figure out what the fuck was wrong with me and what if they told my parents—

“Jean? Jean, it’s me!”

The maid never called me Gene why did she say it like that fuck could she tell was she going to tell my parents was it just Pixis did I get shitfaced again last night what was going on—

A paper bag was sat beside my bed, and my blurred vision came into sharp focus when I felt long fingers pushing back hair that was stuck to my forehead with sweat. Freckled fingers. Bambi freckled cheeks. Deep dark eyes. Worried eyebrows bunched up. Concern.

“Yeah, it’s me.”

Shit, did I say that out loud?

“Yeah, you did. I think you’re still asleep, Jean.” His mouth tipped in an amused smile, as if he was about to laugh. I looked at the little freckle on his upper lip to pull me back to the present.

His fingers retreated from my sweat-beaded forehead slowly, and I missed them as soon as the contact was gone. But he just cleared his throat and bent down to put the bag on my mattress. I had curled up on myself, back flush with the wall at the head of my bed, pillow on the floor and legs in a tangle to make myself as small as possible. He pulled something blue from the bag and offered it to me sheepishly.

“I know I… got your hoodie all dirty. My dad brought me too many clothes anyway, so did you want one of them?”

“What time is it?” I slurred, staring blankly at the offered fabric.

I could hear the anxiety in his voice. “Nine. Sorry I woke you up—I just meant to leave the bag here, but paper bags are kinda noisy, huh?”

I reached out and took the hoodie, my body’s muscles slowly releasing from the cramped position they had frozen in. I wasn’t in any kind of danger. I was okay.

I laid out the deep blue hoodie so I could see the design, and it took a moment for my groggy, mixed-up head to read the bubbled letters correctly. JINAE HIGH SCHOOL MARCHING BAND was arched over the image of a music note. On the back, when I flipped it, was the name BODT in the same bubbled white font. It made me blush a little, knowing his name was going to be on my back.

I looked up as Marco pulled something else out of his bag. “I brought you some pants, too… Just sweatpants, though. They’re a little short on me, so they should fit you alright…”

Was he blushing too?

The pants were black with the word DRUMLINE down the thigh in blue font. They were simple, and ridiculously thick and soft. There was a little tear where the string had been cut out by the staff, and I wondered if they would even stay on my hips without them.

“All my clothes from high school are a bit small on me, and you’re shorter, so… I don’t mean that in a bad way, I just—“

He really _was_ blushing.

God, he was cute.

He blushed deeper, eyes going a bit wide.

Fuck. I said that out loud too.

I just grabbed the sweatpants and messily dropped them on the hoodie. “Thanks. For the clothes and stuff. You didn’t have to—“

“They don’t fit anyway, so—“

“Sorry about earlier too if—“

“Sorry I made your hoodie into a tissue—“

“I mean I was just trying to comfort you so—“

“Yeah, sorry I was so noisy—“

“Don’t be, it’s fine, it’s—“

“Okay.”

We had said it at the same time, me looking down at my hands that were tugging at the little strip of excess plastic from my yellow hospital band and Marco awkwardly trying to fold the now-empty paper bag.

We looked at each other. Eyes wide, cheeks red, and I was about ready to just slam my face into my hands because this was really fucking awkward. I couldn’t even handle second-hand embarrassment and here I was, staring like a deer in headlights for thirty seconds flat until we just.

We laughed.

Marco let out his little giggling noise before he finally gave up on trying to fold the bag, just holding it to his chest. Taking a breath to calm himself, he spoke again, dimples in his cheeks. I had never seen him smile so big that he had _dimples_ before. Fuck. “I’ll let you go back to sleep now. Thanks for earlier, too. It… helped a lot.” And there he was, blushing again. Maybe he just blushed a lot. I didn’t know.

I shook my head, folding the clothes sloppily and setting them aside to change into later. “It’s fine. I’m not really tired anymore, anyway.” And it was true. My fear was gone. My stomach had settled. My panic had dissolved into the air between us, leaving my lungs as I breathed in the oxygen floating around Marco. That was really fucking poetic, but that was how I felt right about then.

Marco shifted, as if he was going to leave, but I found myself launching into a discussion just to keep him there. I was still a little groggy from my accidental nap, but right about then, I was more scared of him leaving than worried about my sleep schedule. I was scared that, if he left, my panic would return and no amount of Zoloft could keep me away from that edge.

“So you were in band in high school, I’m assuming?”

He let out a nervous, embarrassed laugh and sat at the foot of my bed, the bag now on his lap. “Yeah, just for a couple years. It got me a scholarship for college.”

“That means that you went to band camp, right?”

He gave me a look, as if he knew _exactly_ where I was going with it. “Yeah, for one summer.”

“Of course.” I gave him a shit-eating grin, leaning forward a bit. “Tell me all the crazy stories about it. About that one time at band camp.”

He blinked at me, then gave an honest laugh as his neon socks slid on the floor with unconscious nerves. “Band camp isn’t crazy,” he argued, planting his palms on the mattress and leaning back, giving the ceiling a thoughtful gaze. “It was really boring actually. I dunno why band camp is such an old joke.”

I went silent, staring at him. Giving him a _look_. He eventually turned back to me, and burst out into laughter once again.

I really, _really_ liked his laugh. And his dimples. And holy fuck, Jean, get your shit together.

“Okay, okay!” he caved, swatting at my leg as he flopped backwards, his head and shoulders hanging off the edge but he didn’t seem to care. His hands folded on his stomach, and I tried really hard not to look at the spot between his pants and flannel shirt where the fabric had ridden up and exposed tanned skin and the beginnings of wiry black hairs that led downwards. He took a breath and I watched his stomach move and tried really hard to look at his freckled hands instead.

“Okay, so this one time, at band camp—“

* * *

 

I had fallen asleep again while Marco had been talking, but I came to the disappointed conclusion that nothing illegal had happened in Marco’s eleventh grade band camp trip. It was actually kind of boring, and he confessed that the most exciting part of it had been when someone pushed him into a lake and he had to huddle in the bathroom in the nude until his clothes dried. He laughed through it, and I laughed with him because he just had one of those contagious laughs, and I would never get tired of listening to it. And his voice was smooth and calm and it had soothed me even further and Connie had to wake me up at eleven because I was sleeping sitting up.

But in the morning, everything just seemed to slide into place.

Marco and I talked more and it was easy.

 _So_ easy.

I wore Marco’s hoodie and pants in the morning (the sweatpants pooled around my feet and I had to pull them up all the time and the sleeves of his hoodie covered my hands, but I liked it) and Eren teased me about the BODT on my back but I found I didn’t care.

Friday was a blur of joining in on chats at lunch, telling Dr. Jaeger I felt fine, and Ymir raising an eyebrow at my one-eighty from yesterday. I wasn’t giddy, but I wasn’t depressed, and I hoped that that meant I would be discharged soon. We colored in recreational therapy again, and Marco teased me about the fact that I accidentally colored Elmo pink, but I teased him right back for going out of the lines. We got along, and whatever crush I had on him was slowly tamed into something not so focused on sex, but focused on _him_. His laugh, his smile, his dimples, his stories, _him_.

Friday night, staring at the ceiling while Connie snored at one in the morning, I realized that the weird feeling in my chest whenever I saw Marco Bodt smile was probably the closest thing to love that I had ever felt.

Saturday morning, we had omelets and bagels and Marco told me about how much he loved to cook and how much he wanted to get home to make _real_ food. He told me about how he usually cooked dinner for his family because his father couldn’t make toast, and he said without crying or tearing up that his mother didn’t have the patience to cook anything outside of a microwave. He told me about how he wanted to be head chef at a fancy restaurant, or maybe open up his own place. He said how he had only gone to college with the scholarship to get basic classes before he had started saving up for culinary school, but his mother’s health had gotten in the way and he had quit his job to spend as much time with her as possible.

I told him that my culinary skills were limited to Jimmy Dean frozen breakfast burritos and horse granola. He laughed.

It was easy.

Saturday night, we sat in the TV room, digesting the beef lo mein we had had for dinner. We were trying to stay awake for Saturday Night Live, talking about which comedians we liked the most. He liked Bo Burnham, and I liked Aziz Ansari, so we did bad renditions of their jokes to try to get each other to laugh. But we only made it five minutes into SNL before Marco fell asleep with his head on my shoulder and I tried to play it off as something not-gay but Connie still made kissy-faces at us through the window before he went to bed. I just wrapped an arm around Marco’s shoulders to flip Connie the bird, but my hand ended up resting on Marco’s bicep and I used his fluffy hair as a pillow and Levi woke us up by kicking my ankle and glaring at me. Marco blushed, stammered, and headed to bed with only a wave.

It was easy, and it was the calmest I had felt in a long time.

Until Sunday came around, bright and early with another inch of newly fallen snow.

I was starting to worry that Marco actually wanted his clothes back, and when I had walked to his room to make sure that it was okay, I only saw him packing things up in paper bags. I lingered in the doorway, my hands balling into weak fists hidden beneath the length of my borrowed JINAE HIGH SCHOOL MARCHING BAND hoodie. He didn’t notice me for a while, trying to shove all of his clothes back into the bag they had been delivered in. He dropped his toothbrush on top and put his hands on his hips, turning to crack his back.

And then he saw me.

He looked as if I had caught him doing something vaguely illegal, and his hands dropped to his sides as he turned to face me properly too fast. “Oh, g’morning Jean! I—“

“You’re getting discharged?” I tried to sound happy for him. I really did. Truth was, I had totally forgotten that he was going to be discharged so soon. I got lost in conversations and awkward blushing whenever my hand accidentally brushed against him.

He gave a smile, but it was thin. Brittle. “Yeah. Krista said my dad’ll be here in an hour to come pick me up.”

I felt cold, all of a sudden.

“Did you want your clothes back?” I asked, voice monotone. If my mixed feelings shone through, Marco didn’t notice.

“No, you can keep them.” He smiled a bit wider. Stronger. “It gives us an excuse to see each other again, doesn’t it?”

And just like that, the cold was gone.

“You have a note with a bunch of phone numbers on it, right? I saw you using it on the phone the other day. I can give you my number too, and you can call whenever you want. I’m going to move into my apartment tomorrow, so I won’t have any company. It’d be nice to talk to you.”

He was just a friendly person. He probably said that to all of the patients that morning. It didn’t mean anything.

That was what I told myself, but I couldn’t help the heat that spread over my ears.

“Y-yeah,” I stammered, fishing around in the kangaroo pouch of the hoodie to find the worn lime-green post-it note, handing it to him as he grabbed the sharpie he had been using to write his name on his bags. As he wrote his number, I looked around, noticing that his bed was now in the same state as the one Thomas used to be in. A blue plastic mattress wrapped in even more plastic to keep it sterile.

My throat was tight.

Marco handed the note back to me when he was done, smiling warmly at me. His writing was bulky from the weight of the marker, rounded and quick. Almost feminine. “Seriously, you can call any time. I have to start working on getting a job. I quit mine when mom was in the hospital, remember? I’ll be bored, sitting around and filling out job applications.” He gave a little shrug, his freckled fingers awkwardly playing with the clip on the permanent marker. He was blushing again. “I’m sure you’ll get discharged soon, too.”

I just nodded, tucking the little green paper back into my pocket. “Yeah. Congrats on getting out so fast. Go eat a Big Mac for me.” I tried to make light of it. I really did. But my smile was too small, too weak.

“I will,” he chuckled, but he paused, tossing the marker to his plastic-wrapped bed. “Sorry, Jean… I would have told you before, but Dr. Jaeger told me last night and Krista told me to pack as soon as she got here.”

I shook my head. “No. No, it’s fine. Just wasn’t expecting it. N-not that you haven’t improved, no—You’re doing great. I just…”

I just didn’t want to be alone again.

“Jean…”

“It’s actually Jean,” I said in a small voice, finally correcting his pronunciation. “I guess I’ll talk to you later.”

I turned to leave, but he reached out and grabbed my shoulder to stop me. I turned around, taken aback, and stiffened in shock.

He hugged me. His arms, long and strong, wrapped around my upper back and he pulled me into him. He gave a little squeeze and told me I would be fine and I rose my hands to hold his elbows awkwardly. I could feel him more than hear him laugh, and he promised that he would answer his phone whenever it rang, no matter what time it was or what he was doing. And he just… held me.

It lasted a bit too long to be brushed off as friendly.

“You’ll be fine, Jean.” The French pronunciation. My stomach fluttered.

He pulled away when we heard Krista walking towards the room, calling out to ask if Marco was packed. I helped him shove the rest of his mess away, and he managed a small smile, cheeks as freckled and blushed as they always were, and he walked out.

I stayed in his room until I heard one of the nurses lead him out, and then went to breakfast, where I was silent and didn’t enjoy it very much.

Later that day, Armin was discharged as well as Bertolt and a couple sleepers. They left shortly after lunch, and I sat at a table by myself while Hange instructed us on how to make leather lanyards. I was quiet for most of the day, but I made it through my appointment with Dr. Jeager with the diagnoses that I should be released within the next week.

It was the slowest, hardest week of my life.

I called Pixis daily, as I usually did. He talked about the horses because I didn’t want to talk about Marco or how empty things seemed without him. Pixis seemed to respect that and didn’t push me, but he knew something was up. He always knew. I just avoided it.

I didn’t call Marco until Wednesday, and it took me an entire three minutes to push his full number into the phone because my hands were shaking so bad and I kept hanging up with anxious doubts. I just passed on the news of my hopeful discharge while he gushed about a puppy that his father had gotten him as an early Christmas present to keep him company. Its name was Frederick, apparently, and it was a Dalmation mixed with a Springer Spaniel. Hearing his voice made me relax, made me smile, but as soon as I had hung up, the loneliness sunk in again. Visiting hours that Monday night had not done me any favors, and the empty feeling hung like the snow on my bulletproof windowsill.

I woke up Thursday two hours later than usual, only woken up by Hange to tell me I had missed breakfast. I had stayed up late, replaying Marco’s voice in my head and the little “You’ll be fine, Jean” he had told me Sunday while I was pulled to his chest. I never thought I would miss someone so badly, and I was mostly frustrated at myself for not being able to move on and get over it. It wasn’t that big of a deal—I had his phone number and even his clothes and I was fine. I flopped over in bed to voice those thoughts aloud to my roommate, but the words died in my tightened throat.

 Connie’s bed was wrapped in plastic.

I tried not to think about it and ate biscuits and gravy out of a styrofoam box with a plastic spoon.

After Friday’s dinner, I walked outside of the cafeteria to see Petra holding out the phone to me. I blinked at her, and when I asked who it was, my stomach churned the recent tacos in my system.

“It’s Erwin Smith.”

I took a breath and grabbed the sunny yellow phone, facing the wall as I got out a “Hello?”

Erwin’s voice was as strong and smooth as always. “Good evening, Jean.” Thank god he didn’t call me Mr. Kirchstein again. “I have a bit of good news for you.”

I didn’t say anything, my eyes narrowing a bit. I tried not to get excited, not to hype myself up for something that wasn’t going to happen. I tried not to think about money.

“The woman filing against you has dropped charges.”

I blinked. That wasn’t what I had been expecting. “What does that mean?”

He answered quickly, almost a textbook definition. “She knows she can’t win the case, so she’s pulling out. I’ve been in contact with her and her law firm and they agreed to settle for thirty thousand to you. I just need to know if that’s okay with you.”

Thirty thousand dollars. My legs felt a little weak.

“What’s the catch?”

“Out of the thirty thousand, she will be taking what she needs to fix her car. That’s all.”

“And how much will that be?”

I heard a bit of shuffling before he answered. “It could range from fifty to three hundred dollars. There wasn’t any frame damage, but there was a large dent she would need to fix.”

“And how much would I have to pay you?”

“Five percent.”

“Which is…?”

“Fifteen hundred dollars.”

So I would be walking away with well over twenty-five thousand.

“That’s… the only catch?”

“Yes. We handled everything here. The only other thing you would need to do would be come to the firm and sign paperwork.”

I took another breath, trying to wrap my head around it. “Okay… The doctor said I should be discharged by Monday.”

“I can make an appointment to either meet you there, or we can meet up here. Whatever you would feel more comfortable with.”

“I wanna get out of here as soon as I fucking can,” I said honestly, shoving a hand into the warm pocket of JINAE HIGH SCHOOL MARCHING BAND. “Can I make an appointment when I’m for-sure getting out, though?”

“Of course, Jean. Call back any time. If I or my receptionist are not here, you can leave a message with a time and day that works for you.”

“That works, I guess. Thanks, Erwin.” Hey, I figured we were on a first-name basis by now. And I wouldn’t deny that I actually felt a little relieved. I owed the guy.

“Goodbye, Jean. I’ll call you with more details as they come.”

“Okay. Bye.”

I hung up the yellow phone to its equally dingy cradle and suddenly felt like an invisible weight had been lifted off my chest. There was no court date. No twenty-five hundred dollars. No bankruptcy, no crunching numbers, no homeless shelters.

For the first time since I had gotten up the nerve to call Marco Bodt at his puppy habitat of an apartment, I let myself breathe properly.

It was easy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FREEDOM IS COMING


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A warning for gay slurs used in this chapter. Mostly just the F word. Yeah, that one. Not the one that goes in every fucking sentence. The other one. Yeah.
> 
> Go give [Skire ](archiveofourown.org/users/Skire)a big ol' kiss for being my beta reader tho <3
> 
> Also, I'm having a bit of computer trouble, but I'll try to update as quick as I can! I should be getting replacement parts in soon.
> 
> And finally, I am always shocked by how many hits, kudos, and comments this thing gets. Thank you so much and I am so sorry for how stupid Jean is.

Monday morning, I had been pulled out of goals group by Hange, who looked like they were hiding an early Christmas present or something. I tried not to look _too_ excited as I left my sludgy decaf coffee on the arm rest of my chair, stepping over a sleeper’s legs and ignoring Eren’s thumb-chewing glares in my direction. He had become all different kinds of hell since Armin had left, and Levi had actually been working extra shifts to keep him line and to keep him from bludgeoning any other nurses to death. He was seated next to the delinquent in question, occasionally shooting him an offended glance, as if Eren’s mere existence was a sin. He glanced up at me as I headed for the open door, giving me a miniscule nod as I followed Hange into the hall. His face was as pinched as always, but that was probably the kindest I ever seen him.

Hange turned to me with a near-manic grin, grabbing my shoulders and shaking me a bit. They scared me so bad I actually flinched. “It’s the big day, Jeanny!” It sounded more like _Johnny_. “Dr. Jaeger signed your discharge papers, but you gotta go talk to him about your meds! And after that, Ymir has some paperwork for you! Then you can pack up, and you’re home free!”

I was excited.

I was happy.

I held that slip of paper that held my new prescription in my fist like a trophy. I headed into the TV room to speak with Ymir with a grin on my face. I signed all the discharge papers and shoved my Fall Out Boy hoodie and Superman pants into a paper bag. Hange hugged me and Petra patted my arm while Levi muttered something under his breath to a couple of the male nurses before he began unlocking the door while I stood there like a kid about to go into an all-you-can-eat candy buffet.

The door beeped and opened as Levi opened the door and I was suddenly very, very afraid.

I clutched my paper bag to my chest as I followed the short and silent nurse through a maze of halls, elevators, and short stairways, my throat getting tighter with every step. He didn’t look back at me once, only checking to make sure I was still there when he needed to hold the doors for me. My panic was probably visible, but he chose not to acknowledge it. He simply led me on like a lost and terrified puppy, and I did my best to keep up. For a man with such short legs, he walked _fast_. About as fast as my thoughts were racing.

I didn’t know where to go. Ymir had said that I could call a cab if I had no other ride, but I would have to pay the fee out of pocket. Of course, I didn’t have my wallet. I had been returned my belongings, which was only my iPod that was scratched and beaten, but still worked. I had gotten the thing when I was fifteen—Back when things were easier. But music couldn’t pay a taxi fare.

Levi left after I had checked out at the front desk on a clipboard, but I was cemented to the spot. I could see a door, see the snow outside. My tennis shoes felt alien on my feet, and my toes wiggled around with anxious energy. My beanie was smashed over my head and over my ears in preparation for the cold, and my hands were clutching a lime green sticky note and my old black iPod in the kangaroo pouch of JINAE HIGH SCHOOL MARCHING BAND, which was my new favorite hoodie. The paper bag of my clothes was at my feet, an afterthought.

The receptionist was staring at me, pushing the phone across the desk so I could use it. “Are you going to call a cab, or walk?”

I took a deep breath. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Relax. It was okay.

I stepped over the phone and lifted it as the receptionist slid me a sheet of paper that had taxi services listed on it.

“Where do you live?”

“Here. Rose,” I answered, trying to find it on the list.

A manicured nail pointed to which service I needed to call. “This one will get you there the cheapest.” And with that, she turned away and began tapping on her computer as if I had vanished.

I stared at the number, but the fist in my pocket clenched and crinkled a worn-out piece of paper. I grabbed the receiver and held it to my ear, listening to the silence. Not even a dial tone. It didn’t help my anxiety.

The receptionist looked up at me over her glasses. “Dial nine first.”

I nodded and hit the button, getting a dial tone at last.

I bit the inside of my cheek and dialed a number written in permanent marker and curved letters. One ring, and I was ready to hang up, but by the second—

“Hello?” was nearly shouted into the phone, causing me to wince. I soon understood the reason for the loud tone when I heard something shrill in the background.

“Uh, what’s that sound?”

“It’s just—Frederick! Freddy, no! No, you don’t chew on that—Stop!” There was static and muffled sounds as Marco apparently chased his new puppy around before he came back, breathless and quieter. “Sorry, it was the puppy. What’s up, Jean?”

I swallowed, looking away from the receptionist that was eying me. “I, uh… I was wondering how close you lived to St. Maria’s?”

“Oh, I’m over in Jinae. It’s about… Hmmm… Thirty minutes? Not too bad,” he answered. I could still hear the puppy barking in the background, but much quieter than before, as if he had left the room. “Why do you ask?”

I played with the black phone cord in my fingers, noticing I was shaking and fidgeting to go with the squirming in the pit of my stomach. “I just got discharged, and I was wondering… I mean, I can’t really afford a cab, and I was wondering if you would mind picking me up…? It’s cool if you can’t, though. I mean, I can call Pixis and wait for him—“

“Doesn’t Pixis live like three hours north?”

“I can wait.”

There was a little exhale of breath. Almost a laugh. “No, I’ll come get you. Give me some time to corral Freckles into his pen and get dressed. I’ve been in my pajamas all day… heh.”

“So have I,” I confessed, rocking on my feet and feeling Marco’s pants slip down on me a little more. I tried to pull them up one-handed, ignoring the raised brow of the receptionist. “I can wait,” I repeated.

I could practically see the smile on his face as he said, “I’ll be there soon, Jean.”

“Thanks,” I murmured after he hung up.

I forced a little smile at the receptionist as I hung up, shuffling over to one of the plain green chairs and sitting down, unraveling the ear buds from my iPod and plugging them in, picking one of my playlists, head tilted back as I tried to relax. My bag was now on my lap, the bottom cold from resting on the tiled floor. But I ignored it and just listened to my music.

Yeah, I had a playlist for when I was feeling anxious. It helped, okay?

A couple people came and went while I waited, some being checked out and picked up by family or friends and others checking in for therapy. Nurses came in for their shifts with cups of coffee, reminding me of the early morning and the fact that all I had had was a stale powdered donut and decaf coffee. The staff would linger by the desk and chat with the receptionist, gossip about all kinds of stuff. I turned my music up, not wanting to overhear any of it. I was getting out of St. Maria’s and I didn’t want to be there another minute. Of course, I had to come back next week for out-patient therapy, but that was beside the point.

I was just beginning to calculate exactly how long I had to survive in the real world before coming back for therapy when a gust of cold air swept through the lobby again. I glanced up at the cold, and my heart jumped up to my throat when Marco walked in.

I hadn’t seen him out of pajamas before, and it took me a moment to actually recognize him. But freckles and blushed cheeks gave him away, no matter how sneaky he tried to be.

There was one of those pom-pom ski caps on his head, covering his ears and jaw. It was brown and white and a little green in some spots in some weird knitted pattern, the pom-pom a horrid neon orange that didn’t even match. His scarf was deep green, wrapped around his neck and pulled off of his mouth once he was inside. He wore a puffy brown Northface jacket, and the winter armor was finished by jeans and black snow boots with white fur trim. His hands were bare, but reddened from the cold, and his keys were hanging from his fingers as he smiled and half-trotted over to me.

He handed me a zip-up sweatshirt with a faux fur lining like his boots from under his arm, his smile bringing out his dimples again. “I figured you didn’t have any winter clothes, so I brought this.”

“Ah, thanks. You didn’t have to…”

I could have an entire wardrobe of Marco’s oversized clothes and be the happiest man alive.

“It’s fine! C’mon, let’s get outta here before the car gets cold.”

I nodded, re-wrapping my headphones around my iPod and shoving them back into my pocket as I struggled to get the sweatshirt on top of the hoodie I was already wearing. He seemed to notice that I was still wearing his clothes then, giving a little laugh.

“I’m glad you got some use outta those,” he sighed, waiting until I had zipped up the sweatshirt and flipped the hood over my beanie to head back to the door. “You’ll have to tell me how to get to your apartment. I remember you said it was in this town, but I have no idea how to get there.”

I froze.

My apartment.

Marco paused once he noticed I had stopped, turning to me with concern crossing his face. “Jean… Are you okay?”

My apartment.

My apartment with Sena and my things and everything I owned.

My apartment that I had missed rent on.

My apartment.

 The apartment I shared with Hitch.

“I dunno if I can do this,” I weakly confessed, swallowing and jamming my hands into the pockets of the zipped-up sweatshirt, my bag under one arm. I looked down at the toes of my shoes, not able to look Marco in the eye. “Hitch doesn’t know where I’ve been, and I missed rent, so…”

“Jean, it’ll be fine. I’ll even go with you if you need the support. I’m here for you.”

Everything that came out of Marco Bodt’s mouth was just so damn _honest_.

I took a breath. In through my nose, out through my mouth. “Okay. Okay, let’s just go.”

The receptionist waved at me as I followed Marco outside. Into the real world. No more hospital food, no more groups, no more Dr. Jeager, no more hospital beds, and no more Eren. I thought I might pass out or start hyperventilating or something but the first thing that tumbled out of my mouth was—

“Holy _fuck,_ it’s cold!”

Marco laughed at me, hurrying through the wind and the particles of snow that were being carried along. “I tried to park as close as I could—I’m right over there!”

The wind bit through my sweatpants like they were nothing, my fingers freezing on the paper bag I was still clutching to my chest. I hurried after Marco as quick as I could, watching smoke curl from my lips in the bitterness of the cold. It was fucking horrible outside, but it was so much better than being locked inside of a mental hospital.

I liked it.

Marco drove an old beat-up Impala, the paint chipped in some areas and the interior worn down from years of use. I didn’t mind it, because it was still warm, and I wiggled into the passenger seat with my bag on my lap. I buckled up as Marco did the same, pushing his keys into the ignition and turning them.

And then My Chemical Romance came on.

“Whoa, seriously?” I laughed, trying not to outright _cackle_ as Marco pulled out of his spot and began weaving his way to the exit. “I did _not_ pin you down as a _Black Parade_ guy.”

He blushed a little and shrugged, turning on his blinker and waiting for his chance to turn onto the one-way road. “I like a lot of different music.”

“Even music from your eighth grade emo phase?” I teased.

He completed the turn, shrugging. “It helps.”

I just nodded. I knew any further teasing was about to cross the line—I could tell by the meek tone to his voice. My Chemical Romance was probably his go-to when he was feeling depressed. That was like what Hollywood Undead was to me. Sometimes, you just needed shit from your emo eighth grade phase to realize how much stronger you had become in retrospect.

He turned down the music a bit, making it barely audible. “So how should I get to your apartment?”

The rest of the ride was only filled with background Gerard Way wailing his emotions into a microphone as Marco asked for directions and I gave them. He must have noticed how I got more and more tense the closer we got, and by the time we turned down the street my apartment was on, I felt like I was about to vomit. He turned up the music, just a little, and I tried to time my breathing with the beat of _Wolves_. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Breathe. Count.

“I can’t fucking do this,” I whimpered as Marco parked in from of the complex.

The music was shut off as he took out the keys, turning over to look at me. “It’ll be fine. Do you want me to go up with you, in case something happens?”

I wanted to say yes, but I didn’t need Marco to see whatever scene was waiting for me. But maybe Hitch was at work. Maybe she was out doing errands. All I had to do was go up, get my wallet, go meet with the landlord to pay my rent… And then what? Just go back to isolation and ordering Domino’s while I was crying, I supposed.

“Let me come up with you,” Marco insisted softly, putting a hand on the door handle. “At least to make sure you get in okay.”

I gave a little nod and got out of the car, stepping out onto the sidewalk and holding my bag under my arm again. Marco got out once the road was clear and came around to join me, giving me a gentle smile as he opened the door and held it for me. I didn’t even look at whoever was getting their mail, heading straight for the stairs. I lived up on the third landing, and with every step upwards, my breaths were coming shallower and shallower. Marco was quiet beside me, giving me little sideways smiles whenever I hesitated or stumbled.

I stopped in front of my apartment and stared at the little gold plate that read 303 as I reached for the doorknob, but hesitated once again.

Fuck. I didn’t have my keys.

Marco mistook it for fear, which it sort of was. “It’ll be fine. I’ll go all the way in with you if you want me to. I’ll help out with explanations if she’s in there.”

“Thanks,” I murmured, grabbing the knob and turning.

It was open.

The door swung inwards, and I was half expecting a shitstorm to explode outwards and flood into the hall. But it was silent, and I went into our dingy little apartment with Marco behind me. I flinched when I heard him close the door.

I didn’t call out, wanting to avoid Hitch if I could manage. I heard the shower running, the pipes squealing with the work. I quickly walked past our little TV and trash-worthy couch to get to my room. I pushed the door in, dropped my bag onto my bed, and immediately began digging through dirty clothes and pizza boxes to get my wallet, phone, keys—

“Awww, who’s this?”

I startled, turning to see Marco knelt down in the living room. Sena was sniffing at him warily, her gray-tipped tail flicking suspiciously. He had one arm reaching out, palm flat and inviting. I watched, amused, as the petite white cat eventually sniffed his fingers and nudged her face against them, wanting scratches.

“Right, you go greet the stranger rather than your owner,” I muttered, shaking my head as Marco freely pet her, turning back to my room. I checked my wallet to make sure I had my ATM card so I could get the money for rent, and headed back out to check Sena’s food and go find the landlord.

But I heard the shower pipes stop.

I froze.

Suddenly I couldn’t breathe.

Marco noticed, and I heard him walk closer to me as Sena meowed and weaved between my legs in greeting. Marco said something, but I didn’t even hear it, because _fuck Hitch was going to come out of the shower and see me and Marco and what was she going to think what was she going to say_

“It’s okay” was all I heard from Marco as I suddenly yanked him into my room and slammed my door in a childish attempt to hide. Sena startled at the sound and darted under my bed, and Marco was staring at me incredulously as I pushed past him and dragged a suitcase out from under my bed, causing Sena to run into my closet instead, fur on end.

I couldn’t breathe.

I couldn’t breathe I couldn’t breathe Icouldn’tbreathe.

“I can’t fucking do this,” I wheezed, grabbing clothes blindly and shoving them into my suitcase. A handful of underwear, a handful of socks, a few shirts, hoodies, jeans, pajama bottoms—

“Jean, it’s fine, you don’t have to leave. Just talk to her—“

The door suddenly burst inward, Hitch standing in the open doorway in nothing but a bra and lounge pants, her hair soaking wet and held back by a white headband, holding the aluminum bat she kept “in case of burglars” as if she was about to murder us.

She didn’t lower it when she recognized me.

“JEAN FUCKING KIRCHSTEIN!” she screamed, and Marco just stood there, shocked. “You have the fucking _audacity_ to walk outta here five days before rent is due, and now you’re back and—What, are you fucking _eloping_ with this piece of shit?!” The last part was aimed at Marco, and he flinched. I was frozen, hands gripping a pair of plaid pajama pants that I was in the process of shoving into my bag. I just listened to her, cold and barely breathing. “That’s it! That’s fucking it, you freeloading faggot! Where _were_ you?! I called you, like, twenty times, asshole!” The bat finally lowered, but that didn’t make her any less threatening.

She was barely five foot four and I was fucking terrified of her.

I couldn’t breathe.

I stammered something vaguely English, but she cut me off before I could find my voice.

“Just get the hell outta here!”

**Leave, Jean.**

“I’ll get fucking Marlow to move in if you’re gonna be like this! And take your damn ugly cat with you! I’ll pawn the rest of your _shit_ to pay for what _your_ lazy ass didn’t!”

 **Don’t bother packing your things**.

She slammed the bat against the door frame and I flinched. Marco moved closer to me. Farther from Hitch. I could hear Sena growling from the floor of my shallow closet. “Just get the hell out! Jesus _fucking_ Christ, Jean!”

**Please don’t make this any harder than it is.**

Adding a final, “and take this freckled faggot with you” she stomped off, and I heard her bedroom door slam.

I couldn’t _breathe!_

Marco was talking to me again, but I couldn’t hear him. My body was moving on autopilot, gently grabbing a frazzled Sena and placing her in her carrier, locking it up. I continued shoving clothes into my suitcase, zipping it up when it was full and grabbing a second to smash my laptop, Playstion 2, and games into it, along with books and posters and anything else I considered important. I didn’t even dare get my toothbrush or toiletries from the bathroom, having thrown out what I had used at the hospital. I zipped it and shoved both of them by the door, perching Sena’s carrier on top. Marco was still talking, trying to calm me down. I could barely see through tears, barely breathe. Sena’s food and bowl were shoved into a plastic Meijer bag and I headed for the door.

I had done this before.

I could do it again.

Something stopped me, however, and I turned, blinked, and saw Marco looking absolutely petrified.

“Jean, please, listen to me. You need to calm down and just _breathe_ , okay? You just need to—“

Something cracked within my psyche.

“No,” I snapped, pulling my arm away from his hold. “I need to get the fuck over myself. I need to just—I need to take Sena to the animal shelter to fucking return her and hope she gets a home. I need to sell whatever I can and go meet fucking Erwin so I can sign more paperwork and maybe get some money to live on. If I can’t do that, then I’ll go to a fucking shelter. Maybe I’ll just kill myself and actually succeed this time because I’m a useless fucking member of society and I don’t even deserve to be alive right now—! My dad just should have grabbed the damn rifle hanging on the wall and shot me the second I thought it was a good idea to come out! I should have made a fucking noose or taken a handful of pills—“

There. I hit a nerve.

I got a sick satisfaction from the way Marco flinched and backed off.

I didn’t stop.

“Just leave me alone, okay?! I’m just a fucking useless faggot and I’m not even worth it! I have a fucking crush on you, so what, you don’t care! You’re demisexual, whatever that fucking means, and I don’t care! Just leave me alone! Let me just rot away, fucking shit, Marco! There’s a reason I tried to kill myself, and this is it! I just need to—“

My lips were warm. They were warm and freckles were all I could see and dark eyes fluttered shut and back open and then my lips were cold again.

There were tears running down my face.

Marco grabbed Sena’s carrier and a suitcase.

“You can live with me. I have a pull-out couch. It’ll be okay, Jean.”

_But I couldn’t breathe!_

It was a blur, both literally and figuratively. I could barely see through my tears as I grabbed my other suitcase and the bag of Sena’s things. I followed Marco down the stairs and I tried really hard not to show anyone that I was crying, but I failed miserably. I could still barely breathe, and by the time my things were packed away in Marco’s car and I was buckled up again with Sena’s carrier in my lap, I was on the verge of hyperventilating. Marco started the car to get the heat on and turned the music down. He watched me silently, looking concerned all over again.

“Jean, it’s okay. You don’t have to go back up there. It’s okay. You don’t have to go to a shelter and you don’t have to get rid of Sena. Jean, just breathe, please. We’ll be at my apartment soon.”

He started to drive, and I wasn’t able to breathe properly until we passed a road sign that claimed we had left Rose officially. My fingers were stuck through the metal grate of the carrier door, brushing under Sena’s chin as she purred and occasionally meowed to show her distaste for being in a big prison box. I spent my time staring out the window, watching my breath fog it up as I got back into a normal rhythm.

 _The Black Parade_ helped, but I wasn’t going to admit that.

I saw a sign speed past for Shell, Sunoco, and Marathon when I finally spoke up, my voice rough and scratchy from dried tears. “Can we stop at a gas station real quick?”

He gave me a small smile, and I could feel the relief. “Yeah, I should probably fill up anyway.”

He drove into Shell in silence, pulling up to a pump and getting out with a credit card. I stepped out as well, leaving Sena on my seat as she meowed again, giving me the most pathetic look she could manage before I slammed the door in her face. Wallet in my pocket, I hurried through the cold to get inside, browsing the aisles of snacks before I came to a halt at the register.

I needed cigarettes.

I only had a ten dollar bill in my wallet and got pennies for change when I bought a pack of Marlboros and a lighter so I could actually use them. It was one of those shitty little plastic Bic lighters, but it would do. I turned around with my purchase to see Marco heading for the bathroom, and he called out to me that I could wait in the car because he wanted to get some snacks too. He must not have seen what I had clenched in my hands, so I just exited the empty little station, ripped the plastic off my new pack, and lit up by the obligatory outdoor ash tin. I inhaled the smoke without even giving it time to cool, coughed on it, and it felt as if my insides had ignited.

 I felt as if I had woken up.

Suddenly, everything was _real_. I couldn’t explain how it felt, but I was just aware of everything. Of the cold that threatened to turn my face red, my fingers wrapped around the paper of my cigarette, trying to use the miniscule heat to warm up. I was aware of the clouds that covered up the sun and the way the smoke curled up to join them. I was aware of how big Marco’s clothes were on me, and how the ends of the DRUMLINE pants were getting wet from snow and crushed under my black and red tennis shoes. I was aware of Marco’s little car, the backseat stacked with my belongings as Sena’s carrier swayed with her anxious pacing. I was aware of the salt on the little sidewalk and the fact that I was outside. I was aware that, somewhere in the last hour, I had agreed to move in with Marco in his apartment with his puppy because Hitch had spurred a panic attack that I hadn’t felt in six years when my parents called me a Satanist.

I was aware of the fact that I was that one sock that didn’t match any of the other pairs, so you just kicked it under the bed and pretended it didn’t exist.

But I was calm. Every drag of smoke seemed to calm me more, and my breathing matched the steady pace of my heart. I didn’t even panic when I heard the ringing of the bell that hung over the gas station’s door, when I saw Marco’s stupid orange pom-pom from the corner of my eye, when he spoke with something that sounded vaguely upset.

“I thought you quit.”

“I never said I did,” I replied evenly, taking another long inhale and tilting my head back to exhale directly up to save Marco the stench. “They just didn’t let me smoke in there.” In there. I didn’t want to say mental hospital or St. Maria’s ever again—Maybe it would all turn out to be a dream. “It helps the anxiety.”

He shifted uncomfortably, and I glanced over to see a plastic bag that said THANK YOU about fifty times on it was in his hand. In the other were his keys, and they jingled when he took a step towards the car. “Just… don’t smoke in the car.”

“I wouldn’t smoke around Sena anyway.” Okay, so that came out a little wrong, because he gave me this look that made me cringe. As if he was questioning if my cat was more important than him. “Sorry,” I muttered, shoving the cigarette into the sand of the tray, stuffing the pack and lighter in the pocket opposite my wallet in an attempt to balance the weight. I was surprised the pants didn’t pool around my ankles.

He tossed the bag into the backseat before sliding into the driver’s seat, and I got in beside him, Sena once again on my lap and lecturing me in a series of meows and growls about how much she hated being alone in a car. I pushed my fingers into the carrier to pet her again and even when she bit me in distaste, I didn’t stop, because it was soothing.

“It’s just a half hour from here to my apartment,” he supplied as we pulled out and back onto the highway.

I just nodded, and we spent the rest of the drive in a heavy silence with only irritated mewling and Gerard Way breaking through it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a [Patreon](http://www.patreon.com/degradedpsychotic), and I was wondering if you guys would be willing to donate. For every $15, I'd write a lil thing and whatnot.   
> Well, I was thinking, maybe with every $15, I'd release a little chapter of Marco's POV starting several months/years before the mental hospital incident. I'd probably post it on Tumblr or here as a new fic or something, but yeah. That's an offer that stands.  
> I could really do any character's POV, so if you guys are cool with donating, I could stick a link to a poll at the end of the next chapter to decide, yeah? Let me know either on Patreon, [Twitter](https://twitter.com/apljooce), or [Tumblr](http://degradedpsychotic.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> Anyway.  
> It only goes up from here (kinda). I mean, there's a puppy, so it's gotta be good. Right?


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My computer is fixed and we should get back to frequent updates soon!  
> Thanks again to the lovely Skire, not only for beta reading, but making this [adorable fanart ](http://skireda.tumblr.com/post/104824219577/lookit-this-dork-just-lookit-this-gosh-diddly)of Marco and his stupid winter gear. Seriously, I teared up a little bit.  
> I'm tracking **#fic: Higher** on tumblr!

I suspected that Marco Bodt lived in a shithole of an apartment on the edge of the tiny hick town of Jinae.

It wasn’t that I thought he was just a shitty person that must live in an equally shitty place—Oh, not at all. It was just that he was a young twenty-something that had a mother that spent more of her time in the hospital before an untimely death (I could only imagine the bills) and Marco himself had dropped midway through college. I doubted he or his family could afford anything lavish, and it was a surprise enough that he could even afford a dog. His car wasn’t a rust bucket, but it was getting there, and the padding on the seats was worn down with so much use. The radio had been replaced, sure, but that had probably been a gift. I didn’t know shit about Marco Bodt’s financial situation, but I had fully expected that we would end up on the poorer side of town, where ivy claimed deflating buildings and held it strong. I expected that he lived in an apartment with drunkards and drug addicts and strippers and gang members with graffiti on the walls. I expected the absolute worst, as I usually did about most things. Marco’s rumored apartment was one of those things.

I could not have been more wrong.

Marco parked in a lot that had one of those little toll things, but he just swiped a little keyring-sized card and the white pole lifted. He circled for a few moments before finding a spot, and he put the thing in park and began to get out while I was still staring at the building.

No graffiti. No boarded windows. No strippers or passed-out drunks.

The building was massive, made of a light gray siding and frosted windows. It was three stories easy, and every twenty feet or so was a white front door with an immaculately painted number in black. The lawn was buried under snow, but the sidewalks had been cleared and salted pristinely (I would know) and even the outdoor mailboxes had been brushed off and cleaned.

Sena in one hand, suitcase in the other, I numbly followed Marco through the biting cold of the parking lot and up onto the sidewalk. I was still gawking at the place and its high snow-covered roofs and the strand of lights or wreaths that adorned the occasional door as we passed. Again, I was expecting Marco’s door to be bland, to maybe have a little peeling paint. A puppy leaping up on the window beside the door. A crack in the glass. A porch light that had been stolen. Something to let me know that he was in the cheapest apartment.

I needed to stop expecting things.

The outside of Marco’s apartment looked like the fucking North Pole. I didn’t even believe it was his until his key fit the knob, but I was too busy staring at everything to follow him inside. There was a little mailbox beside his door that read “To Santa” and a wreath around his peephole that could have been a tree in and of itself. I could see strings of lights all over the place, but figured I wouldn’t actually see the full effect until nightfall. There was also a creepy little garden gnome in a Santa hat, but I would question that later.

Currently, I was firmly rooted to the spot, feeling cold wind ripping through the layers of Marco’s clothes that I was wearing.

I was going to be living here, and that fact seemed to be cementing right about now. I was going to be in a pull-out couch in Marco’s living room because I had nowhere else to go. I had been kicked out. Again. I was relocating to a stranger’s home. Again. I was going to have to start all over.

I couldn’t breathe.

Somehow, I was inside of the apartment. The door was shut behind me and it was warm and Marco was talking as I numbly followed him down a hardwood floor hallway and he showed me a living room so big that half of my old apartment could fit into it. He put my things beside an old couch with a pale blue nonsensical pattern on it, and my muddled mind and numb panic made me feel like that couch. He pointed to an open doorway that led to the kitchen, and popped his head back into the hall to point to a laundry closet and a bathroom and a set of stairs.

I sat Sena down in the middle of the room and felt like I was about to collapse.

“—and I don’t really wanna leave you here by yourself, but I gotta go grab a few things. I know Sena needs a litter box, so I’ll grab one of those too. Can you think of anything you need, or would you rather go out shopping later?” was the end of his monologue, leaning in the doorway between the living room and kitchen, pen and paper in hand as he wrote on what I assumed to be a grocery list. “Don’t worry about paying me back, either.”

I wasn’t a charity case.

I just stared at him.

He looked up and gave me this sad little smile, tucking the paper and pen into the pocket of his Northface jacket. He crossed over to the couch and shoved it back until it hit the wall, pulled the cushions free, and pulled out a creaking bedframe. Unfolding it, he revealed that it was already made. “Mina said she was gonna visit, so I’ve had this made up for a while. You should take a nap. It’s… been a rough day, I’m sure. Did you want anything to eat?”

I was still staring.

“Help yourself to anything in the kitchen. There’s a shower up on the second floor if you want one, and you can throw any dirty clothes into the hamper in the laundry room. Freddy’s in his pen up in my room, so he won’t bother you. He’s only loud if he knows I’m around. You can let Sena out—the door’s closed too, so they won’t see each other.”

I bent down and let Sena out of her cage.

I resumed staring.

He reached up and rubbed at the back of his head, where his hair was shaved short. “Just call if you need anything… I shouldn’t be more than an hour, okay?”

I was still standing in the middle of the room in a fucking daze when the front door shut and locked and Sena began sniffing around with her tail in the air, suspicious.

At some point, I must have crawled under the handmade quilt on the hideaway bed, because that’s where I woke up.

Everything was just the same as I had left it when I had been awake, with the exception that Sena was curled up and fast asleep against the bend of my spine. It was a relief to wake up in a place that didn’t smell like a sterile hospital, but there was still panic clinging to my bones when I remembered where I was and why. I had woken up in a sweat, partially due to residual fear and partially because two sweaters and a quilt was way too warm for me, and Sena’s minuscule body heat didn’t help that.

I rolled out from the stifling heat, careful not to disturb the heavily sleeping cat as my feet hit the floor and I tried to remember when I had taken off my shoes. But I just shook my head and took off my top layer, rolling up the sleeves of JINAE HIGH SCHOOL MARCHING BAND and tugging off my beanie, hair immediately sticking up wild with static energy. I probably looked as shitty as I felt, and I sort of wanted a shower and new clothes, but standing up completely seemed like too big of a task at the moment. Instead, I just breathed—The apartment still smelled new, like new carpet and polished hardwood. The New Apartment Smell was hidden under the thick musk of New Puppy, though, and that made it just a little more homey.

The apartment was quiet, and I assumed that I must have fallen asleep for only a few minutes, if Marco wasn’t back yet. I could hear muted sounds upstairs that sounded oddly like _squeaking_ and I figured that it was probably the puppy chewing on toys or something. The apartment in general seemed muted, really—There weren’t many decorations, save for a stocking pinned over a flatscreen across from the couch that said MOM on it.

The walls were an off-white, and even such a subtle difference from the stone white walls of St. Maria’s put me at ease. The floor was carpeted in a short white, turning into hardwood in the kitchen and the hallway. There wasn’t much in the living room save for the couch, TV, and a heavily-stocked bookshelf with bowing planks. There was a small end table still where the couch was before Marco had moved it to make room, home to a battery-operated clock and a stack of medical bills. My bags were placed beside it and they seemed so, _so_ out of place.

I felt like I was trespassing on something intimately personal.

Pushing myself to my feet, I pretended that the unholy _creak_ that the bed’s frame let out was just because it was old and not because of my weight. I knew it wasn’t really my weight, but with my anxiety lingering the way it was, it was hard not to wonder if I had put on weight.

I found myself wandering into the kitchen, which wasn’t much brighter. The counters were white with gray granite, paired tastefully with a stainless steel fridge that was home to only a few magnets. One said I LOVE MY DOG with a picture of what I assumed was Marco’s new puppy, being used to hold up a menu from a local pizza place. Another was just the number for Chinese takeout holding up a picture of Marco in khakis and a girl with lighter skin and darker hair standing beside him with a cap and gown ensemble. It seemed recent, and I tried to pretend that the beard he had back then looked good. (It looked borderline horrifying, actually.) The last magnet was pink, in the shape of a ribbon, and there was a small picture of a smiling woman with cascading brown curls and a smattering of freckles across her nose. It was an old photo, likely from the nineties or eighties if hair volume was anything to go by. The only text was alongside the ribbon, and my stomach churned when I read it.

HEAVEN HAS A NEW ANGEL

There was a sliding glass door behind a small wooden dining table, and I found myself slipping outside and fumbling for the smokes and lighter I had stashed in my pockets before my anxiety and unease could choke me any further.

Marco’s back porch was just about four feet out from the building, blocked off with an iron fence that served more purpose as a decoration than a functional boundary. There was a little gate in it, holding back the snow that he had shoveled out of the patch. I figured he had probably let his puppy out on this porch to save him the risk of drowning in the snow.

Behind the apartment and beyond the fence was a courtyard, if something so big would count as such. It was covered in snow, of course, but safely enclosed by walls of the backside of apartments. There was a man out there with a golden retriever that was romping through the snow and biting at every snowball its owner threw as if it was a treat. I lit up and smoked silently, watching the perfectly normal man and his perfectly normal dog play around in the snow.

I needed to leave. Not because I had been kicked out, but because I wasn’t a goddamn charity case. I would just spend the night, and head out tomorrow to get my money from Erwin Smith. This wasn’t like the first time I had been kicked out—Hitch couldn’t take my money, and while seeing her again wouldn’t earn me a black eye, it was my own choice to leave. Sort of. Whatever.

Either than that, a stocking and a pink magnet weren’t home. It reminded me of the fact that I had a perfectly healthy family and so many others had lost theirs to death. Yeah, being disowned was sort of like seeing your family die, but if I really wanted to see their faces, I could hide in the bushes and do so. Marco would never see his mother’s face again, and that little magnet had been the only picture I had seen of her at all. I wondered how that felt, to have only a part of yourself ripped away. It didn’t mean that I wanted to experience it, not at all, but I wished I could sympathize with him. The closest I could get would be the day I left Pixis, who had become some sort of father figure to me. But no matter how much pain Marco had endured, he seemed adamant in his own subtle way that I would be staying with him.

But I couldn’t stay.

I wasn’t a fucking charity case, and Marco was just barely a friend. It wasn’t like we had years of history that made crashing at his place simple and comfortable. I hardly knew anything about him, and while I could fill out a few more details than I could have before, it wasn’t like we were attached at the hip. We weren’t best buddies from elementary school, and we didn’t know what our home lives would be like under the same roof. Shit, Marco hadn’t even known I still smoked until a couple hours ago. It couldn’t work. Life wasn’t that easy. My life had never been easy, and while I had taken it in stride, it had worn me down. It had worn me down to some dead-eyed kid in a mental hospital that was standing on the back porch of a fellow patient’s apartment, smoking a cigarette and watching some fucking stranger play with his dog.

I was broken, I was worn, and I was a burden. Marco didn’t deserve to take me in. He didn’t have the money, fancy-ass apartment or not. If I did stay, I would be paying my way. I wasn’t going to accept the same charity that Pixis had offered me, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to let Marco do this out of guilt or sympathy. I would tell him so as soon as he got back, and I would wrestle Sena back into her box and grab my things and get the next bus to Rose so I could get my money from Erwin Smith and try to settle up somewhere else. Marco didn’t need to babysit me.

I wasn’t a charity case.

I snuffed my cigarette out in the snow and tossed it to the little trashcan sitting on the porch before heading inside.

I shivered a bit at the change in temperatures from inside and out, rolling the sleeves of my borrowed hoodie back down to cover my knuckles. It felt strange, having my forearms exposed, and perhaps it was more habit than anything. I simply refused to think about it, instead digging through drawers and cabinets until I found a pair of white-handled scissors. There was a moment that I just stared at them, not really knowing why I had them, but I saw a little flash of yellow underneath my sleeve and the purpose was as clear as the cloudless gray sky outside.

Cutting off my hospital band was the strangest feeling I had ever experienced. I suddenly felt naked as JEAN KIRCHSTEIN 1/17/92 hit the counter, watching the yellow plastic curl in on itself and staring at my bare wrist. It was like I had just dropped a barbell I had been carrying for the past two-and-some weeks, and my muscles finally had a chance to relax. Picking it up and throwing it into the kitchen’s trash beneath the sink was even more freeing, and I felt like I could breathe for the first time today.

I wondered what Hitch would have said if she had seen the damn thing on my wrist, but decided not to think about her for another second.

Inhale, exhale. New apartment. New dog. Polished hardwood. Residual nicotine.

I slid the scissors back into the drawer they came from as I heard the front door open, followed by the rustling of plastic bags and quiet mutterings about how damn _cold_ it was and how he hadn’t meant to be so late. I went back to the living room and sat on the unfolded bed like I hadn’t moved, reaching over and scratching behind Sena’s twitching ears as she stared out at the hall at the noise.

Marco shuffled in, red-faced and dusted with snow, despite the fact that it hadn’t been snowing. But he was smiling to himself, kicking off his shoes and shuffling quickly to carry the bags to the kitchen. I watched him, confused, and he met my gaze through the doorway as the bags were placed on the floor and he began shucking his layers.

“The kids down the row decided to start a snow war,” he chuckled, finally taking off his damn hat, stuffing it into the sleeve of his coat along with his scarf before hanging it over one of the chairs. His hair stuck up in all directions, and I felt a little less self-conscious of my own appearance. “Are you feeling better? You look it.”

I gave a small nod, running a hand through my wild hair just in case I was still winning the bad hair day as I leaned in the doorway, watching him put a few random things away. I noticed once of the bags held litter and a pan for it, and I was reaching for my wallet when Marco slapped me with the end of the kitchen towel.

“Ah! No! You don’t owe me for it. It was on sale anyway.”

I frowned at him, pushing my hands back into my pockets. “I’m not gonna let you put me up for free.” Where was that determination I’d had on the porch just a few minutes ago? When did Awkward Jean come back? Why was my throat tight?

“Then pay rent.” He shrugged, grabbing a six pack of Mountain Dew and stuffing it into a rather bare fridge. “It’s pretty cheap here, considering we’re on the college side of town. Everything here is pretty low-priced thanks to all the broke college kids.” He flashed me a smile before grabbing a bottle of Ranch dressing and sliding it into the door.

I was still frowning. It sounded like he was feeling sympathetic for my empty wallet. “I can pay it.”

He nodded, balling up the empty bag and moving to the next one. “Okay. Did you wanna go shopping after dinner for things you need? I know you packed pretty quick… Besides, I don’t know what foods you like. You’re allergic to nuts, right?” He pulled two packages of bacon from the next bag before pushing them into the fridge and I tried not to drool at the promise of bacon in my future.

But I just shook my head, arms crossing over my chest as I leaned against the doorframe a bit heavier. “I just don’t like ‘em.”

He arched a brow at me. “Then why— You had a sticker on your band, right?“ His eyes darted down to my wrist, and I couldn’t help but smile when he noticed it was gone.

“Because it’s easier to say I’ll die if I eat ‘em other than saying I don’t like nuts,” I explained easily, shrugging one shoulder. “I’ll eat Reese’s cups and Macadamia cookies, but that’s as far as I’ll go.”

He hummed thoughtfully, pulling out a package of chicken breast that he slid into the freezer. “Good to know. I already told you I like cooking, right?”

“Yeah, you mentioned it.”

He gave me a toothy grin, moving onto the next bag. “I could teach you how, if you want? I cook a little too much, sometimes. It’s good you’re around now so I don’t have to waste it.”

What was I, trash disposal?

I just shrugged again. “I burn toast, so I dunno if you wanna trust me with something like that.”

He laughed, a _real_ laugh that made me smile. Why was someone that was grieving so deeply able to laugh so easily? “That gives us a good starting point, I guess.”

Marco didn’t like saying no. He didn’t say no when I needed a ride, he didn’t say no when he let me borrow his clothes, he didn’t say no when I needed a place to go. He was so nice that it actually made me a little uncomfortable, but I’m not so humble as to deny handouts. It just pricked holes in my pride, that was all. I could deal with it, as Awkward Jean did.

“Are you hungry?” he asked me next, putting away a gallon of milk before shoving the bags in a little corner between the trash and the sink’s piping under the counter. “It’s almost noon.”

My stomach gave a little growl. That pretty much cemented the fact that my anxiety was gone. I was actually _hungry_ now.

“Yeah, I haven’t really eaten anything today.”

“And that probably didn’t help your mood,” he said matter-of-factly, pulling out a loaf of bread and the makings of sandwiches. “I have turkey, ham, and chicken. Preferences?”

I shrugged, grabbing the first packet that he handed and reading the label. “Ham is good,” I offered, watching as he pulled out about four different kinds of cheese. I just stared at him again.

He looked at me and blinked, then looked down at the variety of cheese in his hands. “Uh, I have Colby, mild cheddar, Havarti, Jalapeño jack, and baby Swiss.”

“Dude, I don’t know what any of that is.”

He laughed at me, putting everything away except for the cheddar. “Yeah, I guess I have a lot to teach you, huh?”

I gave him a look as he got down a couple plates, and he laughed again. “I’m serious, Marco. I’m gonna burn your kitchen to the ground if you let me near your fancy steel toaster.”

“Is that a challenge?”

“One with odds you do _not_ wanna go against.”

It was easy to talk to Marco. It was easy to breathe. It was just…

Until we had finished lunch and Marco announced that it was time for me to meet the infamous Frederick.

Up the stairs that had a railing covered in Christmas lights and garland, it was much the same as the first. A hardwood floor hallway with three doors, two of which were open and one was shut tight. No sooner than Marco’s foot creaked on the top step did the muffled sounds of a _very_ excited dog reach us, and I was partially a bit… scared. I wasn’t scared of dogs, no. I was more of a cat person, which went without saying, but puppies were like toddlers with super sharp teeth and drool. And I _really_ didn’t like kids. At all. The fact that there was an energetic ankle-biter waiting for me in Marco’s tiny bedroom didn’t ease me at all.

I really shouldn’t have put any expectations on what the inside of Marco’s room looked like because, again, I was vastly mistaken.

The room was cleaned and all picked up, home to a dresser, an old stereo system, and a queen sized bed flanked by end tables. The room was large, the furniture arranged to give the most free space possible, but said free space was largely taken up by a plastic fence and a carpet of newspaper where a little puppy was throwing his bodily weight against his pen to get to Marco. There were chew toys and a ripped-up bed in there with him, but he was so happy to see Marco that his tail was a blur and his little butt wiggled so hard he almost fell over.

Okay, so he was cute. Whatever. Still didn’t like puppies.

Marco began babbling in that cutesy baby-talk that people generally used towards animals, praising him for being a Good Boy as he easily reached into the pen and pulled him out, holding his wiggling little body like an actual human baby. He rubbed the mutt’s pink belly as he squirmed around more, licking at Marco’s cheek before he froze, lopsided ears perking up as he finally seemed to notice me for the first time.

“This is Jean,” Marco introduced in that sickly-sweet voice again. “He’s gonna be staying here for a while with a kitty named Sena, so be nice, okay?” Giving an exaggerated smooch to the top of the pup’s head, he sat him down, and after a moment of hiding behind his master’s ankles, the little pudge teetered on over to me.

When Marco had first told me that his dog was part Dalmatian, I was expecting something with spots perfectly lined up and arranged like out of a Disney movie. But to be honest, Frederick was really anything but. He had a few round spots along his neck and the right side of his face, but the left side was mottled almost completely in black, and his body was spotted with patches that made him look more like a very tiny cow. He was still a little shaky on his paws, and I wondered just how old he really was, but soon he was sniffing at my toes with his wet nose, flopping down on his haunches and barking at me. His barks turned into defensive growls when I crouched down, elbows on my knees, and his hackles rose when he jumped back onto all fours.

It wasn’t really intimidating. At all.

Marco made a little tutting sound and poked the puppy in the butt with his neon socks, laughing when he jumped and hid behind his master again. “He’ll warm up to you soon enough. He was the same way when dad came over. And it’s not like he can hurt you.”

I raised a brow at him, still on the floor. “Yeah, except bite the shit outta my ankles.”

“Oh, he wouldn’t—“

A yowl got both of us to shut up, looking towards the door.

Sena was a small cat. She was old and a little fat, yeah, but she was small. When she was angry, hair all up on ends, she was about twice the size as was normal, and taking up most of the doorway. Her mismatched eyes were focused intensely on the puppy that was trying to be as intimidating as he could, hiding behind Marco’s legs.

But before Sena could attack the poor thing, I scooped her up and flicked my finger on her nose. As if I had pressed a button, all of the fight went out of her immediately and I sat her down on the floor, where Frederick had started to cautiously approach.

Marco raised a brow at Sena, who had flopped bonelessly to the hardwood in her version of pouting. “What’d you do…?”

“She knows she’s in trouble,” I explained with a lazy shrug, watching Frederick circle the seemingly lifeless cat. She could have passed for sleeping, if her tail wasn’t twitching and her eyes weren’t wide open.

He let out a small laugh, watching Frederick paw at her tail, only to get no response. “You’ll have to help me train Freddy, then… He’s awful.”

“He’s also a puppy,” I excused, trying not to laugh at the way the pup sat back, simply _staring_ at my poor excuse of a cat. “He’s got tons of energy, I bet. You just have to know how to reel it in.”

Marco nodded seriously before reaching back into the pen, bringing out a couple chew toys. “He hasn’t touched these. He’d rather chew on newspaper or that bed I bought him.”

“That gives us a good starting point, I guess,” I quoted, grinning at him when he gave me a look of confusion. “I’ll trade cooking classes if you’re willing to learn how to train your own dog.”

He grinned, and some of his freckles vanished into the crease of his dimples. He was really fucking cute and I doubted that he had any idea how that damn smile made me feel. His hand suddenly stuck out at me, one still holding the unused toys. “Deal?”

I was grinning back when I shook his hand, and I tried to make it seem as inconspicuous as possible when I didn’t let him go until I absolutely had to.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I heard back from only one or two of you about a donation fic, so I set up a survey anyway[ here ](https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/NV5XHFD)where you can vote for which character you'd like to see the story told from. It will be a bit of a dove tail, and there's obviously going to be a bit of overlap, so keep that in mind too! I'll post results and more details by the next chapter!   
> Also, you can only vote once, so make it count!


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story has over 100 kudos. Over 1,000 hits. Guys. _Guys._ I fucking love you.  
>  As always, thanks to Skire for beta-reading and putting up with my weebness at the mall the other day while we laughed over Marco's fucking driving habits.

Being outside of St. Maria’s Hospital for the Mentally Ill was something that just felt inexplicably surreal.

I thought maybe I was dreaming, too doped-up on Zoloft for sane, normal dreams that lacked Marco and a little pudge that he called a puppy. Then again, in a mental hospital, is there really such a thing as _sane_? I half expected Hange to wake me up by loudly proclaiming it to be breakfast, and then shuffling myself off to join zombie-like cattle people to eat from our stainless steel food trough. Or maybe I would wake up to Eren screaming in group therapy, where I had fallen asleep because decaf coffee does fuck-all to keep me awake and sentient. Or maybe I had fallen asleep in the main lobby, waiting for Marco to come get me while the reception stared holes into the side of my face.

Dream or not, I was going to soak it all up while I could.

My body was still working through Panic Attack Mode, and while I wasn’t hyperventilating or crying, my mind was still flying too fast for me to comprehend what I was even thinking or doing and I was fidgeting like a five year old in time out. But despite the uneasiness and urge to pace a permanent track in Marco’s fancy hardwood floors, I opted to flop back onto the creaky pull-out and spend the day doing absolutely nothing productive. Marco was buzzing around the house doing half a million chores that I didn’t care to ask about because he looked like he might knock my head off with a broom if I asked, and the little monochrome puppy following him everywhere was just like a lost… Well. You know.

Sena acted as a blanket for most of the day, either curled up on top of me or curled up close to me. I had the sneaking suspicion that she was just trying to confirm that, yes, I liked her a _lot_ better than that floppy-eared little shit that she had so vehemently disliked within the first five seconds of smelling his New Dog Smell. Sena wasn’t one of those ignorant cats that only care when you feed them, but she also wasn’t the type to cuddle up unless she wanted something. And I had filled her food beside the puppy chow in Marco’s kitchen and stashed her litter box between the toilet and the wall of the first floor bathroom, so there was nothing worth begging me for. Except attention.

But given my shaky mental state, her purring and general presence while Marco made me exhausted just watching him dart around was not without thanks.

Marco finally calmed down around four, dragging a bean bag chair from the hall closet into the living room, setting it beside the single end table and grabbing the remote. I had fished my computer out by now and was trying to get something accomplished before the poor excuse of a battery went out on me, because I was too fucking lazy (and Sena was lying on my ankles anyway) to go find a power outlet close enough to plug it in.

I Googled “demisexual” just because, and my little bit of hope in humanity was restored because I did, in fact, have a chance of getting a piece of that freckled ass. I just had to play my cards right.

“Do you mind if I watch something?” he asked, making me jump as I closed the window for my search, as if he would find out what I was planning. But his focus was fully on the TV and the remote in hand as his free arm reached down and scooped Frederick up in a well-practiced motion, letting the exhausted little runt curl on his lap to catch his breath. Short little legs have to move _really_ fucking fast to keep up with Marco, apparently.

I shrugged, my eyes only briefly flickering to the screen before back to my computer. “I don’t care. Y’know, it’s _your_ TV.”

 _His_ TV, underneath a cute little red stocking that said MOM on it.

I still felt out of place.

He gave a little noise of consideration before he started surfing through the channels, eventually settling on the evening news because there wasn’t anything else worth his time. We were silent for a moment, what with him watching the news with mild interest and me scrolling through miles of untouched Tumblr feed. I had checked my emails and gotten jack shit since my admission into St. Maria’s, except for a message from Paypal reporting that my Netflix bill had been automatically paid and about sixteen other emails offering Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals that had already expired. Sucks being in a mental hospital for the biggest retail weekend of the year. Not that I bought gifts for anyone—The sales on video games and assorted band merch were fucking unbeatable, and I was totally deserving of gifts from myself. But there was always next year, right? Anyway, I hadn’t really missed out on much. I was neck-deep in gifs and memes that insisted that they weren’t memes when my computer flashed a warning at me for only ten percent of my battery remaining, and I just shut the thing so I didn’t get rudely cut off in the middle of my _highly_ entertaining scrolling.

As soon as I had placed my computer aside, Sena crawled up to lay properly on my lap, her hair a bit puffed up with irritability and her eyes not leaving the now-sleeping puppy on Marco’s lap. It was actually really fucking funny, and it helped the weird feeling of residual anxiety.

Marco spoke up during the second commercial break, fingers idly playing with Frederick’s little floppy ears subconsciously. “So did they give you a prescription and an out-treatment plan?”

I didn’t really want to talk about St. Maria’s, but talking about it seemed to dispel the suspicions of all of this being some fucked-up stress dream. So I answered him anyway, partly because that look he gave me made me squirm. “Uh, yeah, they did.” And that was the only answer I gave despite Marco’s pause, waiting for me to continue.

“Did you get your prescription filled?” he prodded, looking down at Frederick when he noticed my unease, playing with the dog’s ears still. The puppy was a hardcore sleeper, I would give him that.

“Uh, no,” I confessed, swallowing the lump that had been sitting in my throat ever since I had opened my apartment door.

My _old_ apartment door. The one that wasn’t mine anymore.

“We can get it filled tonight when we go shopping,” he easily supplied. “Meijer has a pharmacy in it, so we can get that filled while we shop.”

I scowled a little, picking little cat hairs off of the deep blue of my borrowed hoodie. I probably should have changed clothes, or even just combed my hair. I felt disgusting. I would definitely need to shower before I went anywhere, even though I didn’t really want to take off Marco’s clothes. They were comfortable, okay? I promise it wasn’t creepy or stalker-ish. _Promise_.

“When do you start out-patient treatment?” was the next question, and he glanced up at me again. He forced a dumb little smile, as if he was apologizing for all the questions. But if he felt guilty, why ask in the first place? He didn’t get it. He wasn’t fucked up. He was just… situational. Situational depression. He didn’t know the shame that came with it.

Nearly three weeks in a fucking mental hospital, and my pride still hates me for needing _help_.

I shrugged, trying to brush it off as casual as I resumed petting my brat of a cat, her head butting into my palm with impatience. “I don’t start ‘til Monday. Ymir said they were gonna give me a week to get _accustomed_. Whatever that means.” I shrugged again, but it was jerky. Awkward. I hoped Marco didn’t notice.

He gave a nod after a thoughtful look, glancing at the clock. I looked at it too, and rolled my eyes so hard that I was probably looking at the back of my skull. It was a fucking _Hobbit_ clock. “Well, I can take you in with me once you start. You’re going to St. Maria’s, right?” When I nodded, he smiled a little wider. Less forced. “We can carpool. There’s not much public transit that connects us to Rose that doesn’t cost a fortune.”

Marco was too god damn nice. He had loaned me clothes, he had picked me up from Hell on Earth, he had let me stay at his apartment, he bought my cat a fucking litter box—Yeah, my pride wanted me to get out of there so I could support myself, but the Real Jean, the one with major depressive disorder, was clinging to Marco like a fucking lifeline. Yeah, I didn’t _need_ anything he was offering me, but I remember what he told me that first or second day. Fuck, I couldn’t remember. Every day in that place was jumbled.

**They say that depression is helped by reaching out.**

Marco had given me something better than a roof over my head and over sized clothes, if I was going to be mushy and cheesy about it. Yeah, I had a horrible crush on the guy and probably need to get over that, but he was a friend. I didn’t have friends. Pixis didn’t count—He wasn’t my age group, and he didn’t understand some of the things my generation had to deal with. Shit like social media, the pressure to have _friends_ and _followers_ and how everything was just… fucked.

I had Marco. And if Christa was a Goddess, then Marco was some kind of Freckled Jesus.

I also had depression that could make me really fucking emotional sometimes about dumb shit like friends and Marco and his stupid freckles, but that was beside the point.

Marco may have noticed me spacing out, but he was already on his feet and Frederick was wide awake, tottering after him as he headed for the kitchen. “I take your lack of an answer as _‘Cook whatever you want, Marco’_ , or am I wrong?” he chuckled, shooting me a quick smirk to let me know that I had _totally_ zoned out and he had _absolutely_ noticed before he disappeared through the doorway into the kitchen.

“Pretty much,” I muttered, watching as Frederick stopped beside the bed and lifted his head to sniff, Sena stalking off of my lap and towards the edge of the thin mattress to glare at him. I pinched the tip of her tail in warning, but it didn’t stop flicking. “I’m not picky,” I relinquished, poking Sena’s butt when she reached out a paw to swat at Frederick, claws and all, but he had already run into the kitchen to watch Marco cook up _bacon_.

“Good,” he chirped, and I heard the sound of sizzling oil as he prepared a pan. “How do BLTs sound? I know we had sandwiches for lunch, but I really need to pick up more groceries… I would have shopped earlier, but I didn’t wanna leave you here for too long.”

“BLTs sound fine,” I called back, judging the distance between my moping spot and the remote, as the news was coming to an end. Yep. Too far. My stomach was still tight with anxiety, but if I could eat, it would relax. I knew from experience. Some people were anxiety pukers, but I was more of an anxiety eater. Nothing wrong with that, especially when bacon was in question.

I decided that the remote was too far even when I stretched out, and simply played with Sena’s tail until the delicious scent of bacon ripped me away and pulled me to eat.

The chairs at Marco’s dining room table, which I hadn’t really paid much attention to before, were incredibly mismatched. I was seated in a white whicker chair with a puffy green cushion while Marco sank into something made of dark polished wood. There were four chairs, smashed around the table, and of the other two, one was actually just a foldable gray one and the other looked like it belonged in an office. It was a little charming, cementing that, _no_ , Marco wasn’t actually filthy rich. It seemed real. Human.

I ate my BLT in silence, raising a brow when Marco slipped the puppy a tiny piece of bacon.

“Okay, seriously?” I muttered, once I had cleared my mouthful of veggies and bread and _oh my god so fucking good_ bacon down my throat.

He blinked at me, eyes wide and radiating innocence. His hand was still under the table, and I could _hear_ Frederick licking off the crumbs and bacon grease. “What?”

“You said you wanted to train him, and you’re giving him _table scraps_.”

Innocent: ( _adj._ ) Naïve. See: Marco Bodt. (Also see: Bullshit.)

“He’s gonna grow up begging the _shit_ out of anyone in the vicinity of this table,” I explain, pointing a finger as Marco’s hand pulled away, causing Frederick to whine in distress and put his front paws on one of the thick wooden legs of the table, begging for more already. “You seriously need to train him while he’s young instead of older, Marco. Don’t feed him food scraps, and don’t scold him in that cutesy voice, or else he’ll think it’s acceptable.”

He frowned at me, picking at his sandwich with his likely slobber-covered hand. Gross. “But that’s mean.”

“Dude, if you feed him bacon, he’s gonna be the first puppy to die of a heart attack.”

His eyes went even wider, but this time in horror. “Wait, what?”

“There’s a reason they make dog food and cat food. Human food’s shitty for them.” I took another bite of my sandwich while I let that sink in, and Marco looked _devastated_. For fuck’s sake, if he couldn’t train a dog not to beg, I would have hated to see him with a baby. Shit-filled diapers and lots of crying, that was for sure. “Dogs are pack animals, or some shit like that. You gotta assert your dominance, or they’ll walk all over you,” I continued after swallowing.

I was a cat person. A cat person that watched Animal Planet sometimes. Don’t give me that look.

But Marco just nodded _very_ seriously. He was eating up everything I said.

“Does he have a collar?”

“Uh… no?”

I rolled my eyes, exaggerating the motion. My eye sockets were hurting from all of this. He looked scared. “Okay, when we go to Meijer or whatever, we’re going to the pet section and getting him a collar and a leash. And a spray bottle.”

He looked perplexed at the last bit. “A spray bottle…?”

“For when he does something shitty. Fill it with vinegar. I do the same with Sena, since she apparently likes water too much to be sprayed with it.”

I swear, he would probably be taking notes if we weren’t eating dinner. He looked as if I had just educated him on the fucking Pythagorean Theorem or something, instead of telling him shit that should be really obvious to a dog owner. “Have you ever owned a dog before?”

He nodded, mouth full of bacon and bread goodness. I waited patiently for him to finish, taking another bite of my own because _holy fuck why is it so good it’s just a fucking sandwich **fuck**_. “We had a family dog when I was a kid, but she died when I was ten. She got hit by a car.” The corners of his mouth tugged down as he picked at his bread, obviously not liking the memory. “Mina said I should try getting another dog, since I was living here alone…”

Was. I didn’t miss the past tense.

But I focused on something else instead.

“Who’s Mina? You mentioned her once earlier.” At least, I assumed it was a girl. I felt bad for whatever man had the name _Mina_. It almost sounded like a pet name. Much more fitting for a puppy than _Frederick_.

“Oh!” He looked lost for a moment, appalled that he had forgotten. “Sorry, she’s my sister!” He gave a nervous laugh, and I tried to hide the fact that I thought Marco was an only child this whole time and I was horribly wrong. Today just seemed like Marco proving me wrong about every assumption I had about him. “Mina’s only a couple years younger than me, and she’s the only sibling I’ve got. She goes to JCC—That’s the community college around here. She lives with my dad for the most part, but she’s been meaning to visit soon. She has finals this week though, so you might not meet her ‘til the weekend. She’s double majoring in French and Education so she can teach ESL classes in Canada, and she’s gonna _love_ that your name is French. She’s pretty cool!”

Marco really loved his family. I could tell by the way he was borderline _rambling_ about his sister, the little things here and there that showed that his mother was very much alive in his memory. I knew that he loved his family by the way he had so freely cried with his father within the walls of St. Maria’s, and the way he would call him every day on a faded yellow corded phone. I knew because he had been so torn up on Thanksgiving because he just wanted to see or talk to his family but it was impossible inside of a mental hospital. I could tell by his soft little smile and the light in his bottomless eyes. He fucking _loved_ his family.

I was a little jealous, honestly.

But I just smiled and listened to him blab about his sister, his dinner and the whining puppy by his ankles forgotten for the moment.

I helped clean up after dinner, mostly because I still had the tingling feeling of anxious energy and I needed to do something with my hands that didn’t involve a cigarette and Marco’s little back porch. It was fucking _cold_ outside, and the sun had already set, and I was not _that_ hungry for nicotine. So I just washed the dishes and scrubbed the ever-living _shit_ out of the cast iron pan that had been abused by bacon and all of its greasy evil. I loved bacon as much as the next guy, but the mess it made was just _barely_ worth it.

Once I had tackled the small mountain of dishes that had collected, Marco announced that we would be leaving as soon as I was ready. I replied to that with a _polite_ request for a shower (I really just said that I fucking _reeked_ and he pointed me to the upstairs bathroom and the adjacent linen closet without denying my stench). I had gathered a towel and washcloth from the closet as instructed, a change of clothes under my other arm, and Marco left me to go chase down Frederick to put him in his pen as I bumped the light switch with my elbow and froze in the doorway.

As soon as I walked into the bathroom, I swear to the god I don’t believe in, I _almost_ creamed myself. Almost.

Marco had a _bathtub_.

I hadn’t taken a bath in the past six years—Pixis had a closet of a shower, and the one in the apartment I shared with Hitch wasn’t much of an improvement. Yeah, Marco’s tub was a little small and nothing like the one I had lounged in when I was sixteen—I wouldn’t be able to stretch out my legs as much as I wanted to. There was a showerhead too, but I was already stripping off my long-smelly clothes and shoving the plug in the drain, running my fingers through the tap to check the temperature. Soon I was curled up against the porcelain with delightfully warm water lapping at my chest, steam rising and fogging the mirror over the sink.

Nothing could cure the lingering jitters of my anxiety like a really long _soak_ while my mind just focused on how damn good it felt.

I didn’t even begin to wash myself until Marco had knocked on the door, asking if I was okay. My feet and fingers were already suitably pruned, making it a little difficult to pop open Marco’s shampoo (it was the cheap bulk kind and sort of smelled like that Irish Green soap) and scrub at my hair. I was really overdue for a haircut. Like, _really_. It was already curling over my ears.

I washed my hair and dunked my head in the likely _gross_ water before I pulled the plug, half-assing the rest of my cleanup with a bar of soap wrapped in my washcloth just to mask the smell of stale body odor. I would take a shower in the morning or something to scrub more—The bath had loosened my muscles and I really just felt like walking Play-Doh.

I stepped out of the tub after all was said and done, using Marco’s pristinely white towel to dry off. I pulled on clean boxers (I could have popped another boner for how fucking _good_ that felt) and actual jeans were next. The tightness seemed a bit odd, considering my wardrobe as of late had consisted of sweatpants and pajamas. The shirt I had blindly grabbed was a long-sleeve t-shirt in that weird baseball style, where the sleeves were black and my torso was a light gray. I stepped away from the wet bath mat for a moment, feeling much more human, but then I caught myself in the reflection of the fogged-over mirror. I used my sleeve to wipe away a spot large enough to look into, and instantly regretted it.

I looked like _shit_.

First of all, I was totally right about my hair. It had grown out so long that my bangs were sticking to my eyebrows, and my usually shaved sides had grown a little weird curl that looped over my ears. My roots were fucking _awful_ —The bleach I had put in it three weeks back looked just like frosted tips now, and I found myself prodding at my scalp as if it had done me a personal sin. Below that, of course, it didn’t get much better. There were dark bags under my eyes, my pale skin still flushed a bit unnaturally from the heat of my bath. The only redeeming factor about my face was that I had shaved last night.

My face looked rounder, and taking a step back, I noticed that I had probably put on a pound or ten inside of St. Maria’s. Instantly I was on my appearance like an attack dog, already planning out that I would cut back on meals and go out jogging around Jinae as soon as I felt confident enough that I wouldn’t get lost when I went.

Okay, so maybe I had a fucking eating disorder. I didn’t know. All I knew was that Marco knocked again, and he sounded honestly concerned.

“You okay, Jean…?”

“Yeah,” I responded quickly, forcing myself to look away from the mirror. I hung my damp towel and washcloth up on an empty rack beside one that held what I assumed was Marco’s towel—Powder blue, folded perfectly. I just kinda… _wadded_ mine on there.

Still attempting to tame my abhorrent nest of hair as I left the steaming bathroom, I stepped out to see Marco in the hallway, giving me a huge grin.

“Much better,” he commented, currently bundled back up in his winter gear as if we were about to go on an Antarctic expedition. “Do you have a coat to wear?”

My answer to that was a sheepish little grin. It wasn’t that I had just forgotten it—I didn’t actually _own_ a coat. When I worked at the Garrison, they had provided me with a neon orange jumpsuit to keep me warm and keep me from getting run over by snowmobiles. Unfortunately, said jumpsuit remained at the lodge, and I was now without warmth.

He gave a little laugh, and then headed for the stairs. “I have an extra. It’s old, but it should fit you.”

“Uh, thanks.” Yeah, because no one made me feel quite as tiny as Marco and his “old” clothes.

I was expecting maybe a JINAE HIGH SCHOOL MARCHING BAND coat to go with the hoodie and sweats he had loaned me, but I was surprised when he pulled out another Northface. It was white, accented with blue under the arms and up the zipper. I probably looked like a frost-bitten marshmallow when I put it on, because old or not, the damn thing was easily a size or two bigger than what I actually wore. I pulled on socks and my usual sneakers, tying them up with a little smirk because _dear god I really missed shoelaces_. Marco offered me another dumb pom-pom ski hat, but I politely declined. I already looked like shit as it was, so I didn’t know why I said no. At least it would have hidden my hair. I would have taken dorky over shitty any day.

Pulling up the hood of my borrowed jacket, I shuffled after Marco, shoulders hunched as we stepped out into the cold, dark, dismal affair of early Michigan December. The wind blew through Jinae something _fierce_ , and I found myself shoving my hands into the pockets of the Northface and half-running to Marco’s car like a penguin on twenty cups of coffee. He just laughed at me and unlocked it, shouting a warning to look out for any ice. But really, the landscape upkeep around his apartment was _pristine_. Salt crunched under my shoes, and I had to give my props to whatever guy had spent his day throwing the shit all over the place.

Sitting in Marco’s car certainly wasn’t warmer, but it was less windy. He reached it after I had already bundled myself up and squashed my hands between my denim-covered thighs in an attempt to warm some feeling back into them. He gave a little laugh as he got in and started the car, putting the heat on high and lessening my misery. I could have _moaned_.

Everyone in Michigan complains about the winters, and that was for a fucking _reason_.

“You have your prescription, right?” he asked, buckling up and looking at me.

“Yeah,” I said, fishing it out of my back pocket, where I had folded it in with my wallet. I waved it at him as proof, then re-read Dr. Jaeger’s messy scrawl to make sure I had the right thing. Marco nodded once he had his answer, but still didn’t move, dark eyes locked on me. “…What?”

“Buckle up, Jean.”

I rolled my eyes, but did as instructed after he pushed me with “Seatbelts save lives”. He finally pulled out when he was pleased, and I would never let him down for that because Meijer was literally about two minutes from the parking lot.

What a dork.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The results are in! 13 people voted for Marco, and one person voted for Levi. I'm fucking cackling.  
> The first chapter of Marco's story will be posted as soon as I get up to [$15 on my Patreon! ](http://www.patreon.com/degradedpsychotic)Thank you _so_ much for all your support, everyone! Seriously, it means the world to me!


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, Merry Christmas! I actually posted this without having Skire beta because I wanted to give you guys a lil present-- I'll fix things if I need to when she gets a chance to read it! (I'm such a bad author omg I'm sorry)  
> Second of all, I'm _very_ sorry about my absence. My depression has been very bad as of late and I started new meds, and there's a lot going on in my personal life. I'll try to upkeep this fic as much as I can, but expect delays. Very sorry lovelies!  
>  Enjoy the chapter! I'll continue rambling down at the end.

My depression was on a spectrum. It came in a variety of forms, though it shared similar symptoms that lingered constantly. There was a loss of motivation, a change in sleeping and eating patterns, and a general feeling of _grayness_. You know, typical depression side effects. I had experienced two varying degrees of depression lately, from crying for no reason what-so-fucking-ever to just… numbness. I had laid on my bed like a girl out of a bad nineties film, staring at my ceiling and wondering why I should even bother getting up to shower or brush my teeth or _anything_.

Those gray days were, by far, the _worst_. Especially when I was plucked up from a safe and comfy bath tub and placed in fucking _public_.

Walking through the automatic doors of Meijer and entering an overheated vestibule after braving the bitter cold of Michigan’s winter was something horribly gray to me. Doing something so mundane, so fucking _domestic_ , like grabbing a stupid blue cart with the sleeves of my borrowed coat acting as a buffer between my skin and the germs that likely infested the plastic, seemed like some kind of haze. It was like a dream, no matter how cliché or overused that metaphor had become to me, but as soon as Marco produced a grocery list from his pocket and pointed us in the direction of the pharmacy, my whole body seemed to go numb, after my brain. It wasn’t an out-of-body experience, no, but I felt like I was on autopilot. Like I wasn’t really _present_ for handing my prescription to the pharmacist with her long, claw-like manicure that could have ripped me to shreds. I wasn’t really there while Marco grabbed the cart from my unfeeling hands and told me that we might as well get some shopping done while we waited for my pills. I wasn’t even fucking _there_ when he handed me some kind of melon and asked me if I thought it looked fresh enough because he couldn’t make up his mind.

I was living through a gray haze, and I wondered if it was even legal for someone fresh out of a mental hospital to be in a public place like they were healthy and normal.

It was true that the bath had calmed my anxiety. It was true that sitting in steaming water for fuck-knows how long had relaxed my tense muscles into jelly. Taking a bath and properly washing my hair after almost three weeks of too-small showers on five minute timers had really done me a favor, but with that relaxation and the drop of my constant guard, I felt raw. I felt raw and horribly exposed as I confessed I didn’t know how to tell how good a melon was by squeezing it, and I felt open and vulnerable when a little old lady bumped me out of the way with a little electric _thing_ that had a shopping basket attached to it as she rolled off. I wasn’t scared. I wasn’t anxious. I just felt…

I didn’t _know_.

I was never good at labeling my emotions.

I leaned against the cart as Marco shopped, not saying much of anything. I would give my opinion on foods when he asked, but that was about it for me. My vocabulary consisted of “It’s fine” and “I don’t care for it” and “I don’t care, it’s your kitchen”. Fascinating, really. If Marco noticed, he didn’t say anything about it. He did that a lot.

By the time we worked our way through the produce and the adjacent bakery, the cart was already half full. Marco announced that we would stop by the meat department last because something about keeping it fresh and cold and I didn’t really hear him because everything was sort of going in one ear and out the other after beating through the cotton that clogged my mind. He said something about cereal and grabbed the front corner of the cart to help steer me and I followed like a blind man, my pace needing actual mental effort to keep up to normal strides instead of just dragging my feet around.

Marco had to notice the way I was acting. He fucking _had_ to. And he did, of course.

He looked back at me when I slowed down with this little line between his eyes, but I dropped my gaze to the collection of food in the cart that had to be too healthy to be edible. I pretended I didn’t feel like his eyes were boring holes into me.

Marco ate Special K protein cereal. I tried to find humor in that, but then I grabbed a box of Crunch Berries and realized that I was such a little fucking kid and I needed to grow up and eat big kid cereal and eat vegetables and organic bread and be healthy and—

I put the box back when Marco wasn’t looking and grabbed some instant oatmeal instead. (Not the kind with little sprinkles in it either.)

Marco’s shopping list was so simple and boring that I kind of just wanted to run and scream down the fucking cookie aisle and rip everything off the shelves and throw it in the cart, but then I remembered the roundness in my face that I had seen in the mirror, and I was glad that Marco at least ate healthy. The bacon he had purchased earlier was probably not going to help, but… Whatever.

After stacking two dozen eggs into the cart, we wheeled around and headed back to the pharmacy, picking up a few hygiene things for me while we waited for the pharmacist to receive my bag. I was still using the cart as more of a walker or a crutch than anything, and the constant effort of keeping up with Marco’s long strides as he babbled to me about recipes (I just made little sounds to show that I was trying to understand through the gray cotton in my ears) was exhausting me like I was running a fucking _marathon_. Finally leaning on the counter at the pharmacy was like a blessing, and I didn’t miss the way Marco was scanning vitamins with a critical eye.

I wondered if his health kick had been spurred by his deceased mother.

I stepped up to the counter when it was my turn, signing off on the receipt and handing over the whopping _one dollar_ that I owed for it after my insurance (I had to use my debit card, and that was a little embarrassing). Though, how they had gotten my insurance without a card, I don’t know. I just grabbed my little paper bag and peeked in to see the gross yellow, off-white, beige… _whatever_ canister and went back to pushing the cart to the checkout. The cashier gave a too-forced greeting as he began scanning our items, and I watched the prices add up a little too quickly for comfort.

“I’ll pay half,” was probably the more eloquent of the things I had said that evening, but Marco shook his head so fast that I wondered if his neck would snap and the cashier would swipe his bloody head across the red laser too.

“No, no, I’ll pay.”

My eyes narrowed, and I swore that the gray turned a little red with irritation. “I’m not some free-loading charity case,” I spat, fishing out my debit card again as if I was going to slice his throat with it. “Let me fucking _pay_.”

Ah, but Marco had a will of steel, and he looked me right in the fucking eyes as he swiped his own card. The cashier looked like he was mentally preparing for Armageddon to erupt and split the earth between us as demons crawled out and slaughtered every mundane person shopping on a Monday evening. But Marco looked as if nothing was wrong at all, poking away at the little card reader with the tethered-down stylus.

I kind of wanted to scream as my pride literally _shattered_ in that moment.

I hated help. I hated St. Maria’s. I hated Zoloft and the sympathetic smile that the red-clawed pharmacist had given me when I grabbed my meds from her dangerous hand. I hated Marco’s stupid smile and stupid cooking and stupid selflessness. I hated being _handed_ things like I was needy and homeless (which was partially, if not mostly, true, but I would not admit that to myself). I hated that I had thrown in a dog collar and a matching leash from the pet section and a spray bottle with a gallon of vinegar for a dog that wasn’t mine. I hated that I wasn’t allowed to even pay for that much. I wasn’t able to pay for my own deodorant, shampoo, toothbrush—It went on. I had the money. I would have even _more_ money as soon as I got the nerve to call Erwin. I hated that I was fucking _scared_ to call him. I hated that I didn’t know _why_ I was scared.

I hated myself.

I hated Jean Kirchstein and the poor excuse of a man he had become.

And that was the fucking core of everything, wasn’t it? And to think I had _that_ shitty epiphany in god damn _Meijer_ while the cashier handed over a receipt to Marco to stuff into his worn-out leather wallet and the bagger was gathering up our things and putting them in a cart and there was an exchange of “Have a nice night” and “You too, thank you” and my legs were moving me to follow Marco but I kind of just wanted to lay down in the fucking overheated vestibule and never move again.

The coldness of outside did little to shock me back into reality, and I debated lighting up a cigarette to inhale between the doors and the car before I realized that I had left both my smokes _and_ my lighter at Marco’s apartment, amidst the heap of dirty borrowed clothes that I had dumped on the hide-a-bed to deal with later. Besides, hadn’t Marco said something about not smoking in his car?

Fuck Marco.

And not like _that_. That was the farthest thing from my mind at the moment.

I sank into the passenger side when he refused to let me help shove paper bags into the trunk, pulling my knees up and crossing my arms tight around my chest to keep the warmth inside of my frostbitten marshmallow coat from Marco’s high school because he apparently threw _nothing_ away. I vaguely remembered that we had decided not ten minutes ago that we would go elsewhere for a coat of my own, considering how vastly picked-off Meijer’s selection had been. Hell, the whole shopping trip seemed vague and dusty in memory, and when Marco got into the old Impala and prodded me to put on my seatbelt, I did it with such robotic numbness that he _frowned_. The line between his eyes appeared again.

“Jean…?”

It was like he was poking a bear with a stick. That was how he said it. Like he was scared I was going to rip his fucking head off and run it across the checkout line (again). I might have done it too, considering that he had ripped apart my pride and left it on the side of the road in the bitter Michigan cold, but… I didn’t _care_ enough. I was gray.

“I’m fine.”

I said it a little too fast, a little too urgent. He noticed. That line deepened between his eyes and I thought it might be the Valley of Death and if I looked close enough, I was dying on the dusty ground. I looked out the window, at the way my breath fogged the glass instead. Heat. Cold. It helped. I heard him sigh as he turned the keys, and we drove the entire two minutes back to his apartment.

Two minutes felt like an eternity crushed in silence.

Marco tried again, of course, using a tentative roll of my name. At least he pronounced it correctly now. Correcting him once seemed to have set him on the right track for life. Though, it still sounded more like _John_ instead of _Jean_ but why the hell was I being so picky and irritable and _gray_ right now?

I looked at the little paper bag of pills in my lap and wondered if I should just upturn the bottle and would that make me feel better?

Once we rolled in through the gated parking lot and squeezed into a spot between two huge SUVs, Marco insisted that I didn’t have to help him unload the car, but apparently whatever look was making the muscles on my face so tense was enough for him to reconsider. I loaded my arms to carry way more than was probably safe, but I wasn’t about to trek back out into the cold for a second load.

(Marco only had only one bag in each arm, but that was besides the point.) Still, he had to balance them awkwardly as he unlocked the door, and I probably would have laughed at the spectacle of multicolored lights flashing around his struggle if I hadn’t felt like something was spinning a web around my cranium.

Juggling the damn things into the kitchen was a big enough feat in and of itself, and dropping them onto the little kitchen table was a relief that I was a little embarrassed about. I had to start hitting the gym again. Dieting, losing the roundness in my face and putting back on muscle. I had to—

 _Fuck_ , what was wrong with me?

I tried to help Marco put things away, but it was _his_ kitchen, after all, and I had barely found room in his surprisingly deep refrigerator for the eggs when he had plowed through two bags of vegetables and fruits. I put the collar and the leash over the handle of the sliding door for lack of anywhere else to put it, and after I tucked the bag of my toiletries away into the first floor bathroom, I resorted to awkwardly standing around as Marco stuffed his fridge and neatly folded all the bags when he was finished. They were stashed under the sink with the plastics he had balled up earlier, and he straightened up and cracked his back when all was said and done.

I dug my cigarettes and lighter out from the pile on the hide-a-bed, pushing Sena off so I might be able to get to them, and ducked out the back door while Marco gave me this oddly… _withering_ look. But he didn’t say anything, and neither did I.

The thrill of burning nicotine into my system made me shiver, and I leaned heavily against the stupid iron fence (it swayed a little under my weight, clearly built for the sole purpose of decoration) as I watched lights flicker on and off in other apartments. I counted a total of seven Christmas trees shining through first-floor sliding doors, and nine more glinting through upstairs windows. Some people had wrapped twinkling little lights around their little iron fences (Marco was no exception, but there were only enough of the little fairy bulbs to cover half of it) and some people had lights framing their doors. It was the sort of view, with the light of decorations and the moon and fluorescent flood lights reflecting off of the snow that had been disrupted by romping dogs or hyper kids, that should bring a sense of holiday spirit and peace with it. The smoke curling from my lips in time with what was rising from pipes of heaters that pierced every other unit seemed to add to that effect, and I took a deep breath of nicotine to relish in the fact that I didn’t really _like_ Christmas all that much. Religion was a default reminder to my parents, which was a default reminder to my current situation, which led me to watch the way the snow melted around my cigarette before I was lighting up a second one.

My life was shitty. I knew that. That was why I had fucking depression, after all. Circumstances and life situations that left me grabbing at unraveling threads had left me here, at the bottom of… _wherever the fuck I was_.

My depression wasn’t romantic. It wasn’t some beautiful tragedy, but it was a monster eating me from the inside out. Slowly, so I barely noticed it until I actually tried to take stock of myself. I wanted to be normal. I wanted to be able to smile without needing to put so much fucking _effort_ behind it. I wanted to be able to look in the mirror and be okay with what I saw there. I wanted to be… okay. But depression was a ball and chain attached to every single one of my limbs and muscles and nerves, and at least when I smoked, I could pretend I was free from them. You couldn’t put chains around smoke. Even if my lungs collapsed and died on me, at least I would have had those fleeting moments of _I’m okay, I just smoke a lot_. I would rather die an early death than live a long life, as if that wasn’t obvious from the start. Lung cancer might be the way to go. You get lots of attention and people _care_ when you have a terminal illness. With depression, people don’t fucking _care_. They just tell you to cheer up and stop being such a downer. But you can’t, and they can’t understand that, and that was the biggest _fuck you_ to people with mental illness. The fact that no one could see your symptoms on the outside, and it was so easy to hide behind a smile, and no one sent you get well cards or flowers. With cancer, they would—

Right. Marco. Cigarettes. _Cancer_. God, I was a fucking idiot.

I snuffed out my second much like my first, melting away the snow and getting a weird sort of pleasure from it. Both were flicked into the little trash can and I quickly shuffled inside, not having noticed how fucking _cold_ it really was. Cigarettes had a way of making me forget shit like that. Probably wasn’t healthy.

Inside, Marco was nowhere to be seen. All of the lights were off, save for a little lamp on the corner of the U-shaped counter, bathing the room in a dull yellow glow. Sena had moved from the bed to the kitchen chairs, and she was walking along their seats with balance I could only envy before she decided which was the most comfortable for (even more) napping. I let my cold fingers ghost along the fur at the back of her neck, getting a twitch of an irritated tail in response. My borrowed coat was returned to the closet that Marco had pulled it from, and my shoes were toed off at the mat by the back door. I had a feeling I would be stepping out for another cigarette sooner than later.

The clock on the oven informed me that it was already quarter to nine, and exhaustion seeped right back into my bones as if I hadn’t napped at all today. I found my pills beside the microwave, pulling them out of their paper package and tossing it, keeping the bottle and only briefly viewing the dosage for accuracy before I popped it open and dumped a little pill into my palm. It was the generic shit—The cheap stuff. But as long as it did its job, I really didn’t give a shit. I just knocked it back with water once I located Marco’s glasses and headed back to the bed to change into my pajamas and get some fucking _sleep_.

(I ended up staying up smoking on the back porch and surfing the internet numbly until two in the morning. Marco never came back downstairs.)

* * *

Sleeping in past seven was  _heavenly_ .

Of course, I had woken up a little after just on habit, but as soon as I had noticed the time on the _Hobbit_ clock (and Marco was cooking eggs and bacon in the kitchen), I buried myself back under the quilt and went right back to sleep. Bacon was good, yeah, but sleep was _better_.

The next time I woke up, Sena was using my stomach as a bed and the stupid _Hobbit_ clock proclaimed that it was just gone noon. I pushed the cat off of me so I could breathe, followed with the quilt and quickly shuffling out of bed. I had fallen asleep in nothing but boxers and my long sleeve t-shirt last night—I normally slept in the nude, since Hitch never _dared_ to come into my room, but I figured I might as well save Marco some decency if I had kicked off my covers at night. Besides, the chill of stepping outside for so many smoking breaks had stuck to my bones.

That and, well, I still had scars I wasn’t ready to open up about because, when it came down to it, me and Marco were still _barely_ friends.

The trip to the bathroom and eventually to the kitchen was full of rubbing at the crust in my eyes and blinking blearily at my surroundings. I hadn’t woken up in a fright, confused about where I was, but there was still the thin film of not quite belonging. That stupid stocking in itself felt like it was judging me.

There was a sheet of paper clipped to the fridge with the magnet of Marco’s mother, and I ripped it free because I didn’t want to _touch_ her. As if I was on fire and touching her might destroy the last photographic evidence of her smile that her little lost Marco owned.

The note was written in the neat, almost-feminine scrawl that had to have been Marco’s. After all, there wasn’t anyone else that could have written it. But there was still his name there, at the bottom. Fucking dork.

_I’m at out-patient until 3, so feel free to make yourself at home! The neighbors around here are pretty friendly, so if you need anything, don’t be afraid to ask them! There’s a wall phone upstairs if you need to call me, and Freddy is still in his pen. I hope you’re feeling better than yesterday!  
-Marco_

Sighing, I crumpled the paper and tossed it, taking his word to _make myself at home_. I pulled open the cupboards until I found a bowl, spoon, and instant oatmeal, regretting already that I hadn’t kept that box of Crunch Berries in the cart after all. But a quick dip under the sink and stuffing it into the microwave was only the fast part, because it took me about two minutes just to figure out how to work the damn thing. (Seriously, why was every microwave different from the next one?)

My subtle wave of mood swings from yesterday had receded into a gentle calm, and by the time I had chewed through overcooked oatmeal, I was ready for bed again. Everything was still strongly tinged in gray, and rinsing out my bowl and upturning it into the drying rack was so much work that I wondered where all of my muscles had gone. Turned to moosh, maybe? Depression could do that, right?

Monday may have been gray, but Tuesday was _black_.

Depression was a spectrum. White were the good days. The days where I could go outside with a _real_ smile and actually appreciate the fact that I was alive. Those days were few and far-between—I actually couldn’t remember the last time I had had one of those. There were grays, which were the most common, dreary and foggy and only occasionally disrupted by a spark of anger or anxiety. I lived my life in grays, but even sometimes, it would tilt radically to black. Black was when I had no energy, when even getting out of bed was a chore. Black days were the days that Netflix paused my marathons and asked if I was _really_ still watching. Black days were the days when I couldn’t even bring myself to answer the door when the pizza man came. But that poor freckled ginger kid knew me well, and he’d accept the envelope I slipped under the crack and leave my pie for me to retrieve when the coast was clear.

Black days were the days I spent staring at the hardwood floor of Marco Bodt’s kitchen and wondering if I fell hard enough, would my skull crack open?

It was a little scary, how fast I had woken up to _white_ and spiraled back into _black_.

It was also a little worrisome that I was back in bed with no recollection of how I had gotten there, masterfully blocking out the occasional bark or whine from the little shit upstairs. Hell, I even ignored Sena, and she returned the favor to scour around the apartment in the snooping time that I was wasting.

I had taken my meds last night, so what the fuck was _wrong_ with me?

I fell asleep. I fell asleep, and I didn’t remember when, but I pretended I was still snoring when I heard the front door unlock and Marco came home with the brief clunking around as he took off his boots. There was a moment of silence, one in which I had brief anxiety as to _where_ Marco had gone, but I heard him head upstairs after an eternity of milliseconds.

He didn’t come back down, so I went back to sleep with the quilt pulled high over my head.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I haven't received anything for the donation fic. You can [donate here](http://www.patreon.com/degradedpsychotic) on the left, where it says GIVE $__ PER CHAPTER and you can input any amount you want! (It just defaults to $10 but you can just give $1 if you want.) Reminder that I won't post it until I get $15, and with my current mental and emotional state, I'm actually _super_ pumped to get Marco's part started! So that's like if all of you that voted just gave $1.15, we'd be good! (That's only 13 cents from every person that left a kudo too.)  
>  But it would be super if I could get support in this way from you guys, and I'll see you either next chapter here or at the start of Marco's story!


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNING:** This chapter contains some pretty intense suicide mentions! Aka, Jean pondering different ways he can end his life. The bulk of it is within the first few paragraphs, and there are more subtle mentions later on. Take care of yourselves!
> 
> As always, thanks to Skire for beta-reading and helping me with big ol' gay Reiner.

Isolation is the first red flag for depression. Pretty much everyone knows that, and if you have depression, you _really_ know it. Isolation is just sitting around, avoiding any and all contact with humans or, in some cases, pets. My version of isolating was wrapping myself in blankets despite how badly I sweat and overheated, curled up in bed with Sena bugging me for food and me just tipping the bag of food upside-down and letting her go to town. Sometimes I watched TV or movies and ordered pizza and binged, but other times I just… laid there. No food, no water, nothing. Just _there_.

I was isolating _bad_.

For the rest of Tuesday and up until noon on Wednesday, I didn’t do anything outside of lay around on the hide-a-bed or smoke out on the poor excuse of a back porch. I had smoked through my first pack in no time flat, and I had been debating on whether or not I wanted to brave the single-digit temperatures and walk my sorry ass to Meijer to grab a couple packs. But _walking_ seemed like a tall order, and going out in public seemed just plain impossible. My company had consisted of Sena, and watching her laze around hadn’t been much of a motivator for me to do something. Not to mention that she couldn’t _talk_. Even the damn dog’s whining and occasional barking wasn’t enough to get me out of my pajamas and the quilt I had physically attached to.

But Marco was isolating too, so it wasn’t just me. He had depression too, and the only times I had seen him were the mornings when he left or when he came downstairs to let Frederick out on the little icy cobblestone to pee and get used to his leash and collar.

At the moment, I was just lying on the bed and staring at the ceiling with a cat on my chest. Nothing big. Contemplating mortality and the various ways I could kill myself before Marco got back from out-patient care. I had bought a razor (I had two days of stubble to show that I didn’t actually use it) and it would be easy to snap out one of the blades. Sit in the tub, run the water, slit my wrists. Down, not across. It would make a mess, but a tub with running water was probably the cleanest I could make it. It’d be easy—Maybe a little painful, but whatever. If I did both arms, it wouldn’t hurt long. And maybe I could even find one of Marco’s kitchen knives to do it better. Yeah, I could do that. Or hang myself from the hanging light above the kitchen table. I could do that too.

What an _exciting_ Wednesday.

The doorbell rang and Sena jumped off of my chest with such force that I actually grunted in pain. Seriously, my lips had been sewn shut for forty-eight hours. That much noise was a huge difference. But I didn’t go answer it. Why the fuck would I?

It rang again and Sena crawled behind the TV stand to hide. I resumed counting the flecks of shadow on Marco’s textured ceiling.

The doorbell was forgone in favor of a fist pounding so hard that I thought the door might burst off the hinges and the apartment would collapse around it. There was shouting, shit like “I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE” and I began wondering if it was just some confused drunk or a hit man. Either way, that route of death was cool too.

Silence fell after a kick landed on the door, and I closed my eyes and waited for the hit man to dive through the window beside the door and murder me with shards of glass. But there was nothing, and I was trying to coax my muscles into moving so I could carry out the bathtub plan, but there was a gentle _click_ and the door swung open, bringing a gust of fucking _frigid_ air with it.

It slammed shut just as quickly, someone muttering curses as I cracked open my eyes and rolled my head to the side to look. Seriously, it was too much work to even _lift_ my head.

“Okay, no, I’ve seen too many dying people on that damn bed,” the intruder snarled, dropping a paper bag that had been bundled under one arm to the floor as he stomped on the entryway rug to knock snow loose. He looked intense—Like the abominable snowman, but in a fucking _blood red_ coat. Seriously, what the fuck? Maybe the lumberjack from that old Rudolph movie.

He crossed over to the bed and I closed my eyes again. If I was going to die, I didn’t want red and a _Lions_ ski cap be the last thing I saw. The insides of my eyelids were much more comforting.

“Jesus fuck, Marco was right.”

I was silent, still, and continued to stare at my eyelids. Marco had hired a hit man to come get rid of me. Understandable. I was just a fucking free loader anyway. He wanted to get rid of me, so why not hire someone else to do it while he wasn’t around? Maybe he wouldn’t feel as guilty. The hitman could even clean up the mess for him. Get rid of the cat too. Easy.

The quilt was ripped off of me, and every muscle in my body seemed to tense at the same time, nerves on high alert, waiting for a knife in my gut or a bullet in my skull.

Instead, he grabbed me by the ankles with _icicles_ for fingers and my head smacked against the carpet-covered hardwood and I saw stars and spoke the first words since Monday.

“What the _fuck_?! That hurt!”

He let go of me, stepping back and huffing with his hands on his hips like some kind of displeased mother from the fifties. “Good. You’re awake. Now get up.”

Really, the only reason I sat up was to cradle the bump that was likely sprouting on the back of my skull. “Who the fuck’re you?”

“Apparently your new babysitter,” was his gruff reply, reaching up to pull off his hat to stuff it in the pocket of his unzipped coat. “Marco was worried about you, so I thought I’d swing by. Lucky you, he gave me a spare key.”

“Yeah, _lucky_ ,” I snarled, something leaking through the drapery of cobweb-coated black in my brain to bring out nothing but _irritation_. Who did this guy think he was? “I’m alive, I’m awake, so leave.”

“Don’t think so. You look like shit.”

“Thanks,” I seethed, one hand still woven through the hair at the back of my head (I really, _really_ needed a haircut) as I brought myself up enough so I might sit at the foot of the bed and actually _look_ at the unwelcome guest. “Seriously, who the fuck are you?”

“Oh, right, right.” Chuckling as if it was the funniest damn thing he’d ever heard, he jutted out a chilly hand for me to shake. “Reiner Braun. I live two doors down from you.”

I didn’t shake his hand, and he eventually dropped it.

“Right, you don’t leave the bed.” He shrugged, thinking for a moment before reminding me. “You know Bertholdt? Guy in a wheelchair that was in Saint Maria’s? He’s my boyfriend.”

 _Oh_.

Right, he was the YES HOMO guy.

“Anyway,” he quickly diverted, stepping away to grab up the bag he had dropped by the door, “When’s the last time you ate?”

I just kinda stared at him because, for one, I didn’t _actually_ remember, and for another, I was still trying to process what the hell was actually going on. The look on my face was enough answer for him though, because there was a bag dropped on my lap.

I started to wish that he really _was_ going to kill me, because hitting my head on the floor and getting nailed by a grocery bag on my lap were _not_ pleasurable experiences. And I was still giving him this confused half-glare as he nodded at me, and my hand dropped from my head as I looked into the bag.

A _lot_ of them.

“What the—“

“It isn’t healthy, but I figured you would rather have comfort food.”

I scowled, gathering up the bag and thrusting it back out at him. “Dude, the last thing I need is sweets and weight gain.”

Never mind the fact that my inner five year old was _squealing_ with delight.

Reiner didn’t take the bag. Rather, he peeled off his coat and tossed it onto the bed beside me, cracking in his knuckles in the most intimidating way possible. His long-sleeve shirt said YES I AM AND NO YOU CAN’T WATCH. This is what my death was going to look like. Big, gay, and muscles with a crewcut while a puppy barked above me.

He stomped past me and into the kitchen.

Swallowing about thirty seconds after he had exited, I quickly shoved the bag to the floor (fuck me, I _really_ wanted to eat those) and half-ran to the kitchen, freezing in the spot to find Reiner literally raiding the cupboards and throwing all sorts of things onto the counter beside a pastel blue mixing bowl.

“What are you doing?” I finally asked, watching him throw in two bare sticks of butter before pushing the bowl into the microwave.

“Cooking,” was his simple reply, punching at the thirty second button and turning around to face me, hands back on his hips. “You need to eat _something_. Especially if you can’t remember the last meal you had.”

“I had oatmeal,” I muttered, hands finding their way into the kangaroo pouch of my old Abercrombie hoodie.

“When was that?” he prodded, watching me with such scrutiny that… Well, honestly, I was a little scared. Not that I hadn’t been terrified the moment he dragged me out of the bed.

“…Yesterday?”

I saw his eyes dart to the clock on the stove as the microwave beeped. He left the butter inside. “That was it?”

“Uh, yeah…?”

He sighed, yanking out the bowl and tossing it on the counter, sorting through cupboards some more before he found measuring cups. “I know Marco’s not doing much better.” His voice was soft, all of a sudden, and I sort of wished I could see his face as he measured things out. “Bert said he looks like he hasn’t slept in days. Has he been acting weird?”

I found myself shrugging, then shrinking under Reiner’s over-the-shoulder glance. “I haven’t really seen or talked to him since Monday. He left a note yesterday, but not today.”

“He’s isolating?” A bit more searching until he was wielding a wooden spoon.

“Yeah…” Not that I could talk bad about that.

“Shit,” he muttered, putting way more muscle than necessary into stirring. “Anything else?”

“How would I know if I haven’t seen him?”

He was frowning as he went to the fridge, grabbing three eggs in one hand. Fucking hell, this guy was _colossal_. “Right, sorry.” He bumped the door shut with his knee, cracking the eggs like a pro and going back to mixing. “You both need help.”

“That’s why we were in the fucking hospital,” I spat, giving up my guard in the middle of the room and collapsing into one of the dining chairs. Reiner didn’t look at me. “Why do you even care?”

 _Now_ he looked at me. And he looked… well, murderous. “Because Marco’s my friend, asshole. He’s been my friend since middle school, and any friend of his is a friend of mine.” That was said with way too much defense to be sentimental, but it still made something prick at my skin. “He worries about everyone, and worry is something he doesn’t need to add onto his plate right now. His mom fucking _died_ a month ago. He couldn’t even bring himself to go to her funeral. He doesn’t need to be worrying about _you_ and your skinny ass.”

First of all, I know I’m an asshole. It’s in my genes, or whatever. But that snapped me right the fuck back into place. Even if I was struggling with my own depression, that didn’t mean I had to take Marco down with me. No, that was just a shitty thing to do. A really, _really_ shitty thing to do.

I looked at my lap and said “Sorry” in such a small voice that I wondered if I was a child.

He shrugged, dumping flour into the mix and coughing when it clouded up. “It’s whatever, dude. I get it. The whole depression thing, I mean. Bert’s got anxiety, and I know it’s different, but it’s a lot of the same symptoms. Food and talking go a long way.”

I was silent, slouching down in my seat and watching him cook. It was sort of like watching a giant crushing a small village, fee-fi-foh style, little corpses of eggshells littering the scene. I really had no fucking idea what he was cooking—I wasn’t a cook myself. I would probably burn water if I had to boil it, much less chuck shit into a mixing bowl without a shred of doubt like Reiner was.

He upturned a container of cinnamon and I finally had to ask.

“What the fuck are you _making_?”

“Slightly healthier comfort food, since you’re so offended by my donut offering,” he deadpanned, studying the mix for a moment before adding a dash more of cinnamon. “Enough to feed you and Marco for a couple days, at that.”

_Or enough to feed you._

I didn’t say that out loud. I valued my life at least _that_ much.

Sena dared to approach once Reiner had upturned the overflowing bowl into a _huge_ baking pan, watching him with a cat’s curiosity. Part of me was kind of hoping that she would bite his ankles like the little bitch she was, but she just gave him a passive glance and skittered back into the living room. Reiner didn’t even notice, setting the timer on the oven and beginning to clean up the hellish mess he had made. How he had managed to keep himself clean and flour-free, I had _no idea_.

“So…?” I started, watching him wash his hands before wiping down the counter. “Is this normal for you? Just letting yourself into Marco’s house and cooking for his guests?”

He chuckled again, this deep, rumbling noise, as he answered. “It’s not a first, if that’s your question.”

I raised a brow at him, still slouched so deep in the wicker chair that it was a wonder I could still see him. “Okay?”

There it was again. A little frown, and his voice getting so much softer. “When Marco’s mom was dying, I came over a lot to help with what I could. Those last couple months… He didn’t even want to leave her side long enough to cook, so I’d come over and cook something for them. His mom liked me—Said she enjoyed my company and wanted me to take care of Marco when she wasn’t able to. When things got really bad, when she started staying at the hospital more often, I just made them freezer meals. Stuff they could pack up and heat up and eat on the road. It… was hard. Watching them go through that and knowing that all I could do was cook for them.”

I really didn’t want to hear that. If anything, it made me _more_ depressed. Marco had gone through so much shit, and here I was, considering suicide not a half hour ago. Marco had seen enough death. Once was too many times.

Reiner had said that too many people had been dying in that bed. I didn’t want to think about that.

“So, uh… Marco knew Bertholdt before the hospital?” Anything to get me to stop thinking about Marco’s dead mother and the magnet on the fridge and the stocking that said MOM.

“Oh yeah. They met in high school, when I started dating Bert. Me and Marco were both in band though, so we’re a bit closer than Marco is to Bert.”

Okay, he looked like a football player, so why the _hell_ had he been in band?

He laughed, resting against the counter to face me. “Yeah, I’ve gotten that look before. I wasn’t this big in high school—Well, this big, but none of it was muscle. I started body building in my junior year.”

“And how old are you now…?”

“Twenty-two.”

Holy _fuck_.

“So you went from nerdy little band kid to a fucking _titan_ in, what, six years?”

“A _lot_ of hard work,” he laughed, and I swear on Marco’s mom’s grave that he _flexed_. “But worth it. Not everyone can throw homophobes over fences.”

I blinked, straightening up a bit in my seat. “Okay, I _gotta_ hear that story.”

He laughed a bit louder, running a hand through his close-cut hair. Seriously, he looked like he could easily be in the Marines. “Not much to it. Me and Bert went down to Detroit for their pride parade and some asshole wouldn’t leave us alone. Tried to pick a fight with me—Poor guy had bad taste in a _lot_ of things. Picked him up by the collar of his pressed straight-man shirt and tossed him over the crowd barrier onto his ass. His face was priceless, but Bert wasn’t too pleased about it.”

“That was it?” I pushed, eyebrows still high. Now I _definitely_ knew not to get on this guy’s bad side.

“That’s it.” He shrugged again, glancing over at the time remaining on the oven before back at me. “But damn, a little chitchat and you brightened the hell up awful fast.”

I frowned, sinking back down. He had a point, but I still felt like I had been busted. The last hour or _however_ long Reiner had been around had been nothing short of an emotional roller coaster. I picked at a loose thread inside of my pocket, looking down at my lap because I didn’t want to see the look of pride on Reiner’s face at nailing that kind of observation.

“Talking helps,” he said simply, cracking open the oven to check on whatever he was cooking. “I know Marco’s not the cheeriest right now, but you should still talk to him when you can.”

I sighed, running a hand through my hair and massaging the still-sore spot where I had kissed the hardwood. “I know, I know.”

Seriously, though. How many times did I have to hear the same thing over and over again? I knew talking helped. I knew that I had to put the effort in getting better in order to actually get there. I knew I had to take my pills. I knew I needed to eat and not isolate and I should probably stop smoking, but it was _hard_. Everything was hard with depression like an iron ball and chain holding me down. Reiner didn’t know that. He didn’t have depression. He just _knew_ people that had it.

Reiner didn’t say anything more on that topic, checking on the oven again before ducking back into the living room. My fingers twirled around the loose thread I had been playing with and ripped it free as he came back in, setting the paper Meijer bag on the counter and pulling out various striped boxes of Krispy Kremes.

“You really don’t want these?”

I really, _really_ wanted them.

“No. They’re too fattening.”

It was all about _control_.

He shrugged, popping open one of the boxes and picking out a glazed donut, holding it in a half-offering gesture. “Are you seriously that scared of gaining weight?”

“You brought me, like, forty-eight donuts,” I muttered, tossing the thread onto the floor and not watching where it landed. “Do you know how many calories are in _one_ of those?”

He rolled his eyes, taking a bite out of the pastry (though it was less of a bite and more like _half of the goddamn donut_ ) as he moved to stash the boxes in the cupboards. “You don’t need to lose weight. You need to put on muscle,” he said simply, words slightly muffled by the food in his mouth. “You wanna come to the gym with me? I got a one-day guest pass.”

Reiner was a really weird guy, considering I had met him not even an hour ago and he was cooking for me and brought me donuts and now he was offering me to come to some powerhouse of a gym with him. Maybe I was lying in the bathtub bleeding to death and this was my end-of-life dream, or whatever. Something like that. I mean, that was really the only likely explanation for whatever was going on right now, because why would some band geek turned body builder be cooking for me?

“You don’t have to,” he sighed, finishing off the donut in a second bite that made me a little queasy. “Jus’ an offer.”

It was a good offer, though. I wanted to lose the roundness in my face, so why not start going to a gym? Reiner’s offer was one day only, but maybe I could work out a deal and get myself a membership. Fuck if I was going to jog in _this_ weather. A gym would be warm and indoors and good for me. And with Marco’s healthy food, maybe I could actually lose weight in a way that wasn’t destructive for once.

“I’ll… take you up on it,” I answered, a bit uncertain of what I was getting myself into. Reiner’s gym was probably packed with beefcakes like him, and a weak little shit like me would probably just end up getting squashed. Yeah, I had a bit of muscle, but neglect to actually keeping it had turned it into this weirdly soft strength where I could lift an eighty pound bucket of road salt (with both hands and a lot of effort) but going up a flight of stairs could still wind me. But, hey, there wasn’t any getting better unless I put the effort into it. That was at least one good thing I had learned in Saint Maria’s.

Reiner grinned at me, fucking _grinned_ , and slapped a hand against the counter so hard that I was afraid the faux granite might shatter. “That’s what I wanted to hear! Go take a damn shower and we’ll go after you eat something.”

 _Oh_.

“Uh,” was my reply, blinking like a deer in headlights. I hadn’t really expected to go _now_ , but I supposed it was better to go before I could change my mind and return to my depressed burrito state in bed. But going up to shower in the bathtub wasn’t something I really wanted to do, especially with the plan of slicing my skin open was so fresh in my mind. “Can we go, like… tomorrow?”

His excitement deflated just a bit, but he was still grinning with something akin to victory. “Sure, we can go whenever. You got a phone?”

“Uh, yeah,” I mumbled, a bit confused at the abrupt question. “It’s on the bed somewhere, I think, but—“

But he was already heading over to find it.

I slid out of my seat, the smell of cinnamon filling the kitchen as the timer ticked down to the last ten minutes. I found Reiner beside the bed with my Android in his hands, tapping and scrolling like it was his for a few seconds before he tossed it back down to the mattress and pulled an iPhone out of his pocket.

His case had two interlocking male symbols on it and I wondered just how fucking _gay_ this guy really was.

“I put my number in your phone,” he answered, typing on his own phone for a moment. “And now I have yours,” he finished with a grin, tucking the phone back into his front pocket. “Text me or call me when you’re up for it, and if I don’t hear from you by Friday, I’m going to take that as an invitation to come get you myself.”

I just nodded numbly, looking down at my phone to avoid looking Reiner in the face. “…Thanks.” Because sometimes, you needed a muscular gay dude to threaten you out of your isolation bubble.

He walked past me and back into the kitchen, snow boots squeaking on the hardwood as he did so. I had a feeling I was supposed to follow him, but the cobwebs had turned into chains and I couldn’t really move. I didn’t know how to act around people, really. I had just thrown myself into the current that the whirlwind of Reiner had created and as soon as I had let myself so much as _twitch_ , that easiness was gone. I didn’t know what to do with myself, or with the man cooking cinnamon somethings in Marco’s kitchen. I felt like an outsider, plopped down in the middle of someone else’s life. My suitcases were still mostly unpacked, a small pile of dirty clothes on top of them as the start of a mess that could reach epic proportions. I felt like I was just an observer, something out of my body that couldn’t really settle anywhere. Reiner wasn’t really here, I wasn’t really here, what was reality anyway? Fucking hell, was I dead in a bathtub or not?

“Jean, are you okay, dude?”

I snapped right back into place, jumping slightly as I turned to see Reiner poking his head into the room, an oven mitt over the one hand I could see, waving at me. “Huh?”

“You spaced out, man. You’ve been standing there forever. Food’s ready.”

Walking back into the kitchen was like putting myself on autopilot, and sinking back into the wicker chair gave me a weird sense of relief. Reiner glanced at me with poorly hidden concern as he put down the other oven mitt as an impromptu hot pad, setting the surprise meal down on top of it alongside a bottle of syrup.

Seeing the overwhelming _platter_ of French toast sticks that were steaming and coated in a fine dust of sugar made me a little… sick to my stomach.

“Are you serious?” I muttered, watching him as he grabbed plates and forks before making his way back over. He just grinned, sitting down across from me and heaving some of the French toast onto his own plate.

“Eat up before it gets cold,” he instructed, shoving the food into his mouth with reckless abandon, putting it away like some kind of trash compactor. Or something just as terrifying. The giant-crushing-a-village metaphor came to mind again.

I started off nibbling at two sticks. No syrup. I scraped off the sugar. I tried to mentally add up the calories and wonder how hard I had to work at the gym to burn it all off by Friday.

I finished with a stomach ache and over half of the massive platter was gone and my fingers were dusted with sugar and sticky with maple syrup. The five year old monster in my stomach seemed wickedly pleased with the outcome, smacking his lips and teasing me with the donuts that had been hidden in the cupboards because _oh come on there’s totally more room in here for those too_. _Just a couple. Come on, pig out! You’ll feel better._

Reiner stood first, collecting the dirty dishes and dumping them in the sink before locating tin foil and wrapping the leftovers after I had snatched one last stick. He arched a brow at me through a grin, but didn’t make any comments as he slid the significantly lighter platter into the fridge after rearranging a few things on the shelves.

“Feel better?” he teased, kicking the door shut and checking the clock on the oven before turning back to me.

I just patted my incredibly bloated stomach in reply, and he laughed.

“Good. I’d stick around longer, but I gotta go pick up Bert from out-patient. Don’t forget to text or call me about the gym thing, okay? Or else your skinny ass is getting towed away in the back of my Jeep anyway.”

Threats worked good with me. They reminded me that I really _was_ a little piece of shit and that I needed to man the fuck up already. Yeah, it was negative reinforcement and not the best way to go about it, but they worked. It was just how I was. My hard wiring was just a little fucked up. That was why I was on meds and got sent to a mental hospital, remember? Jumping in front of cars, and shit like that. But cars wouldn’t have very good breaks in the snow. And maybe I could find a truck. A semi or something. It’d be messier than sitting in a bathtub, but less messy for Marco. Or maybe my stomach would explode from French toast and that would be the end for me. Something like that.

Reiner called me out on being spacey again as he began to leave.

Goodbyes were short and a little awkward as Reiner stomped out in his blood red coat and _Lions_ hat, the door shutting behind him and my fingers reaching to turn the lock as soon as he was gone. I danced a little in place to warm up, my bare feet chilled on the hardwood from the gust of air before I awkwardly hopped back into bed and cocooned myself back into warmth and the homemade quilt.

Old habits die hard, and all that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still no [ donations](http://www.patreon.com/degradedpsychotic), guys! Someone let me know if it doesn't work, if you're all really trying to donate and it's not working. I am going to lower it to just $5 per chapter if that's anymore encouragement for you all.
> 
> I promise there's going to be more exciting things happening soon, and Marco will come back! And Erwin. But you probably want Marco more. ;D


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Skire for beta-reading!  
> This was going to come out sooner, but I got a bit busy with my birthday and my mom moving and it was nuts, yo.  
> Also, some trivia: Variants of the word "fuck" are used over 270 times in this fic so far.

Social interaction _really_ wore me out.

As soon as Reiner had left and I had curled back into bed, I felt like I had just dropped a fifty pound weight. Whether it was depression, a food coma, or the over-socializing that Reiner had practically drowned me in, I felt ready to sleep for a while. Even rolling over into a more comfortable position seemed like too much work, but once I closed my eyes, the world fell away.

And when I woke up, the Hobbit clock proclaimed three o’clock. Exactly the time that Marco was going to get home.

Reiner had said that we had to talk, but really, what did we have to talk about? Was I supposed to apologize for hiding in bed? Was I supposed to apologize for chain smoking on his porch? Hey Marco, sorry for being a piece of shit, but you’re not being much better. No, that was a bit… rude. But I didn’t know what else I was supposed to say. Reiner’s surprise visit had pretty much drained me completely, and my little nap hadn’t done much to recover that.

Maybe I would just talk to him tomorrow. For now, I was more than content with dragging my laptop onto the bed and scrolling through Tumblr and wasting my life on the internet until Marco got back. But…

Marco was late. Very, _very_ late. Like… _three fucking hours late_. I was about ready to call the newly met Reiner just to form a search party for the freckled bastard. Seriously, there wasn’t much between Jinae and Rose, and from the brief trip in Marco’s car, he drove like a seasoned old man behind the wheel, so he wouldn’t get in a wreck. No way. Sure, it was nasty out, but the roads had probably been cleared and salted…

Not that I was worried.

I had been playing around with Sena by lazily dragging fingers under the quilt (Tumblr could only entertain me for so long) when the front door unlocked and opened again, Marco bustling in with a draft of cold air and quiet mutters of how _cold_ it was. He seemed a little unstable, considering that he fell against the wall just trying to get his snow boots off to show his hideous neon socks. I watched him as he masterfully avoided looking in my general direction, Sena meowing as she weaved between his boots, the owner of which was now clinging to the railing and staring at the stairs as if he was afraid they might swallow him whole.

I knew a drunk man when I saw one.

I slid out from under my blankets, bare feet sinking into the carpet as I shuffled over to him, the chill of the hardwood being a rude awakening as I danced in place for a moment. Marco either didn’t notice me, or he was _really_ focused on the stairs. He was also swaying in place, but that was none of my business.

“Hey, Marco…?”

He hummed in response, and that was pretty much the extent of what I got. He just raised a very slow foot to the first step and paused, looking like a man that was trying to climb up Mount Everest without any gear. Yeah. He was definitely drunk. And I didn’t just know that because he _reeked_ of a stale bar.

“You okay, buddy?” Okay, so I kinda thought it was funny. I was a bad person. But it was _really_ funny, watching him look absolutely terrified of his own stairs.

“Y-yeah, fine,” he said quickly, heaving himself up to get both feet on the same stair. My hands started to hover, not wanting him to fall backwards and slam his head on the floor. I knew how _that_ felt. “I’m just gonna go to bed.”

“You drunk?”

First test for a drunk.

“No! No, I’m not drunk—“

And he answered wrong.

“Yeah, okay. How about you tackle the stairs later? You should—“

 _Wait_.

“Did you… Did you _drive home?_ ”

He paused, looking at the top of the stairs with crinkled eyebrows. “Uh…”

“ _Marco_.” Marco, who told me to put my seatbelt on for a two minute drive. No _way_ would he have driven drunk.

“No! No, uh… Sasha drove me. Yeah. Sasha.”

Okay, who the _fuck_ was Sasha and why did she let Marco drink before the sun was even set? Yeah, I had my confrontations with alcohol, but never during the _day_.

“And Sasha didn’t come in to make sure you were okay?”

“Um… No. I guess not.”

I sighed, but my moment of irritation at this _Sasha_ was cut short as Marco finally unbalanced, and I barely managed to grab his forearm to steady him and his drunken self before he had hit the ground.

“Okay, you’re sitting down, Mr. Not Drunk.”

It was quite the effort to get Marco to the kitchen, much less sit down. He was oddly picky about which chair he wanted, but once he was settled into the old wicker chair, I sat a glass of water and a package of saltine crackers in front of him. (It took a _lot_ of self-control not to grab a donut or five for myself.) He stared at the water with the same odd concentration that he seemed to give the stairs, hands gripping the edge of the table as if he was afraid he was about to fall out of his seat.

“What is that?”

“Water and crackers,” I explained, pushing both towards him. “I dunno why you’re so plastered, but you gotta sober up a little before you try getting into bed.”

“But I’m not—“

“Just humor me.”

He seemed to shrink in on himself, but once he began sipping at the water (and making an absolutely _disgusted_ face at it) I finally caved in and grabbed one of the Krispy Kremes. A part of my soul died when I took half of it in one bite, but the other part of me was fucking _screaming_ in joy.

“Hey, hey… Why don’t I get a donut?”

“Because they’re mine,” I replied, giving him a crooked a grin, lips covered in icing. “Reiner got them for _me_ , not _you_.”

His big dark doe eyes blinked, hands wrapped around the glass, still in knitted mittens. Was he seriously still cold, or what? “Reiner came over?”

I hummed an assent through my next heavenly bite of donut, grabbing the milk from the fridge to pour myself a glass. “Yeah, he—“

“Oh my god, I’m probably making him worry…”

I shrugged, eyeing him for a moment before pouring milk into a glass I had plucked from the cabinet. “Well, he—“

“Oh my god, Reiner… H-he’s always been so worried about me and Mina and dad… Oh god, what am I _doing?”_

So Marco was an emotional drunk.

Did I get the short stick, or what?

His stupid mittens left his glass as he cradled his head, hanging it down to the table as his voice took a more watery edge to it. “Mina’s coming over this weekend! I can’t—I can’t let her see me like this, oh my _god_ … And dad—Dad might call and he’s gonna be so mad with me… I don’t drink! I’ve never drank before! I-I had one daiquiri on my birthday and that was it! Reiner’s gonna worry and Sasha’s worried and then Connie’s gonna worry and he’s already anxious as it is and oh _god_ what’s Petra gonna say at group tomorrow? Oh my god I’m so _useless!”_

I didn’t quite manage to catch myself before I sloshed milk all over the counter, too surprised and enraptured in Marco’s swift downfall. His forehead had slammed onto the table, sobbing hard into it and I couldn’t even understand his words anymore. It was half amusing (I told you I was a bad person) and half fucking _heart-wrenching_. “Uh…”

But I was no longer in Marco’s little drunk world, and he lifted his head enough to sip his water, but I grabbed another donut and distracted myself with wiping down my glass of milk because I couldn’t handle emotions. Especially crying. _Fuck_ that, seriously. What do you say to someone that’s obviously drunk and having a mental breakdown? Nothing.

The front door opened again as I mopped up the counter with a paper towel, and I left the glass behind with my donut as I ducked into the living room, half expecting Reiner to be standing there with another crate of sugary heaven. But instead of a human tank, it was a girl (she was probably slender, under the too-big camouflage fleece jacket she was wrapped in) that peeked around, caramel eyes settling on me after scanning the stairs.

“Ah! Jean! Where’s Marco?”

I blinked, having met my social interaction quota for today, and she bustled herself into the house, slamming the door behind her and briefly stamping her clunky hiking boots on the rug before Marco’s drunken voice piped up from behind me.

“Sashaaaaa! Call mom! I don’t feel good!”

The girl (Sasha—and oddly familiar as a brown ponytail spilled out of her hood) froze halfway into the living room, eyes wide and lips forming a little _oh_ instead of the concerned scowl of before.

We stared at each other for a moment, me feeling the prickling of Marco staring at my back and her completely frozen, brown eyes beginning to shine with unshed tears. She blinked them back, took a breath, and walked briskly past me and into the dining room. I lingered where I was for a moment, not really wanting to hear what Sasha was telling Marco in hushed whispers that soon made him cry _harder_.

Sena peeked out from under the bed and gave me a _look_ —You know, those generic death gazes that cats give you whenever they feel like it. It somehow got my ass moving, and I turned back to at _least_ get my glass of milk.

Sasha had taken the folding chair and slid it over to where Marco was, and the drunk in question had completely slumped against her. His own arms were clutching at the camo monstrosity that Sasha was still zipped up in, and her arms were around him, one rubbing his spine and the other in his hair as he sobbed into her shoulder. As soon as Sasha registered the soft _clink_ of my glass lifting from the counter, she zeroed in on me with a desperate expression.

 _Help me,_ she mouthed.

I shook my head vehemently, taking a step back.

She glared _daggers_ into me, and then flipped me off with the hand she had on Marco’s back. Sighing, she returned to something gentler, gently pushing Marco off of her. “Marco, hey, listen to me. I need to get Connie home. Jean’s here to take care of you—“

I faked a totally not anxious smile when he blearily looked over at me.

“—so you’ll be okay. Reiner said he’s gonna drive you into group tomorrow with Bert—“

“Don’t wanna go,” he slurred, hiccuping with tears. “Don’t wanna go back there…”

Sasha frowned, leaning back as Marco resumed occupying his own seat and giving the still-full glass of water a sour look. “Why don’t you wanna go back, huh?”

He shook his head, and the next words out of his mouth made my stomach hurt.

“They can’t bring mom back.”

Sasha and I looked at each other again, exchanging worried and sympathetic sentiments as Marco played with the plastic sleeve of crackers.

Truthfully, I had _no fucking idea_ what to do. I wasn’t even good with my own emotions, let alone being in charge of someone else’s. I knew that Marco was upset, and that was the extent of it. He was torn up over the death of his mother, a shattered mirror of what his life had been when she had been alive. He probably wasn’t used to being on his own, living with my depressed ass, a moody cat, and a fucking _puppy_. He was probably used to living with his parents and having family dinners and just having an actual loving _family_. He loved his mom—That much was obvious. But to still be hurting…

Everyone had a grief period. Weeks, days, years, months, whatever. Maybe losing a parent was one of those things that would never completely heal. Losing the picture perfect setting of your life, only to have an important member, a _mother_ , stolen away. To break and shatter and spread your shards around you like a shield to keep people away because you don’t want to be a _burden_.

No, no.

That last part was all me.

But what shattered me? Why was I broken? Was it that kid that shoved me down the stairs in elementary school? Was it my mom, whispering prayers in French that I would change and turn out okay? Was it my dad, turning purple in the face and demanding that I get out of his sight? Was it getting winded after three shovels full of horse shit because I was crying about being alone?

Why was I broken? Why was my world made of broken bottles and tears that were too salty to stomach?

My family was alive. I had a roof over my head. I didn’t have a stack of medical bills from cancer treatments and leftover funeral debt. I didn’t have the pressure of taking care of a new puppy. I didn’t relate smoking to my own dead fucking mother. Marco had it _so_ much worse than I did. How dare Ihave the audacity to be _sad_?

I dumped my milk down the drain and left the room.

I could feel Sasha’s glare pricking at the hair on the back of my neck, but I really didn’t give a shit right then and there. I just shoved my wallet and phone into the pockets of my pajamas, stuffed my beanie on my head, and threw another hoodie over the one I was already wearing. I barely heard Sasha ask where I was going as I slid on my shoes and left.

In retrospect, it was a really shitty thing for me to have done, but ten more seconds in that apartment and I would have suffocated.

Not only being rude, but it was fucking _cold_ and _dark_ outside and I was about as familiar with Jinae as I was with the complex interconnecting webs in my own skull. But I remembered which direction Meijer was in, and by the time I had waded through ankle-deep snow to the roadside sidewalk, I could see the bright red sign glowing in the premature winter night.

I made it about halfway before I resorted to curling in on myself. Hands clenched tight in the kangaroo pouch of my doubled hoodies, striving for body heat as I hunched my back to the wind and nearly slipped half a dozen times just on the sidewalk. I knew I didn’t have much money on me, so my trip to Meijer wasn’t going to be a long one, but I had a debit card and my fingers were twitching with an itch for a cigarette.

I didn’t _like_ smoking. I knew that I could end up like Marco’s mom and have bad breath and permanently brown teeth. I knew that it could turn my chewed-down nails yellow and kill me a hundred different ways, but I _needed_ it. That was what a fucking addiction _was_. The only reason I hadn’t died of withdrawal alone had been me cheating the system and getting a nicotine patch almost every two hours in the tall white walls of St. Maria’s, and the first thing I had bought when released had been a pack of Marlboros.

I was a piece of shit. Trust me, I was fully aware.

Let me define that a little more, actually.

I was, and still am, a fucking _coward_.

I didn’t understand my emotions because I didn’t want to. I was scared of what they actually were. Scared of facing the truth that I was feeling such complex things, because life was so much easier when you were apathetic. I was scared of understanding anything, really, because I was afraid that there would be even more shattering among my little feeble world. It was a stupid fear, a childish fear, and I was a close-minded bastard, but… That was how it was.

I left the house because I didn’t want to hear Marco cry.

I left the house because I didn’t want to realize how good I really had it.

But that was the thing about me and depression. I was sad, and I didn’t know why. Yeah, I was homeless, in the middle of a legal battle without even being there, and clinically diagnosed as _mentally ill_. There were stigmas, there were just plain _bad days_ , and there were dumb little beige pills that I needed on a daily basis. There were nicotine addictions and self-guilt and self-doubt, but a strong lack of self-confidence.

Depression was a monster in my veins, wired into my muscles and bones with nerves and sinew. It was a beast of a thing, but quiet, never letting me know when it was there. But it _was_ , and its gargantuan weight made my legs feel like lead and its foul breath fogged my mind and stirred the cobwebs that caught doubts and fears and clung to them tightly. It’s nice that I can put it into purple prose and metaphors like that, but there’s not really a word to explain how _shitty_ depression makes a person feel.

And the cold wasn’t helping that at all, so I all but ran into Meijer as soon as I was close enough.

The vestibule was just as overheated as it had been in my last visit, and I didn’t feel much less _gray_ than I had then either. My body had gone chilled and nearly numb, and I was mentally chastising myself for not putting on some thicker pants, but I just shuffled my way into the store and made a beeline for the glass case that held exactly what I needed.

 _Cigarettes_.

I ended up buying three packs, paying for them with my debit before I swiped a Twix that I paid for in the small amount of cash that I actually had. Reiner’s little _gift_ earlier had set off a horrible chain of reactions, and I was going to have to reel in my inner sugar demons to keep myself from coming down with the diabetes that ran on my dad’s side.

I didn’t want to think about my dad, or my family, or anything.

So I stood in the warmest corner of the vestibule, munching on my Twix bar while I poked my phone awake.

I had twelve text messages.

Something settled unpleasantly in my gut as I opened them, noting that _every single one_ was from Hitch. They all said the same thing—Just with different vulgarities and threats. Bitching at me for dropping out, for leaving her with the rent, for leaving all my shit there… It made my hands shake and sweat pooled in the cusp of my palm, but I chewed my candy bar harder and with more aggression to chase the anxiety back where it belonged. I knew, logically, that Hitch had no power over me. Yeah, I had left some clothes and odds and ends back at the shitty apartment we had shared, but I didn’t really care about any of that stuff. I told myself I didn’t care, but I did. But that wasn’t _everything_ that was throwing me for a loop as I scrolled past all of Hitch’s texts, which got more and more angry and vile the newer they were.

It was new to me, being kicked out and then demanded to come back.

I closed the window of texts, not wanting to look at it anymore, and began to aimlessly scroll through my phone through my meager contacts. I had transferred the little scrawls of numbers on post-it notes into it, and that was pretty much it. I had Pixis’s number, Marco’s cell and the apartment phone, St. Maria’s, and Erwin Smith. I deleted Garrison’s number, knowing I wasn’t about to go back _there_ , and my thumb hovered over the little trash can beside Hitch’s number before I groaned and hit the home button and swallowed the last bite of Twix.

I was a coward, okay?

Shoving my phone back into my pocket, I set on the act of using my trembling fingers to rip the plastic off from the first case of cigarettes. I paused, wrap halfway off, my eyes lingering on the graphic warning that decorated the box. Warnings for cancer of the lungs, heart, brain, throat…

I tossed the plastic aside, ripped the thing open, and got a cigarette between my lips before I realized I didn’t even have a light. I muttered profanities around the stick in my mouth as I dropped the box back into the bag with my others, hunching my shoulders and braving the cold to step out of the vestibule and outside.

I may not have been functioning at my best right then and there, but at least the bum stealing shopping carts actually _did_ have a light on him and didn’t try to steal my shit. Nice guy. Smelly as hell, but now I had smoke rushing my lungs and heat in my mouth and I felt a little more _sane_. Of course, my current state probably made _me_ look just as homeless and disgusting.

After muttering a thanks to the guy, I looped my arm through my bag so I could shove my hands into my pockets, beginning the cold, dark trek back to the apartment.

I didn’t really _want_ to go back. I didn’t want to go back to Marco crying over his mother or Sasha shooting me glares over his head. I just didn’t want to _deal_ with that. I was afraid I might say something wrong, that my own depression would spike like I was inhaling sadness secondhand. But the truth was that I had no other place to go. I didn’t have a car, I didn’t have the cash for a bus, and I sure as hell didn’t have a place of my own to hide out in.

I stopped under a streetlight, cigarette burning low between my lips, and pulled out my phone.

I wasn’t one to reach out. The only reason I had gotten treatment at St. Maria’s was because I had told the nurse in the emergency room that I wanted to die. I had never told anyone that I felt suicidal, never sought out psychiatrists or therapists. I carried my burden alone, and my spine bore all the bruises and cracks as proof.

I tapped Erwin Smith’s name and a dial tone buzzed back at me.

What? He said I could call back any time. Besides, seven o’clock wasn’t _that_ late.

My anxiety told me to hang up as soon as I heard the grainy ringing of the other line, my signal not the best halfway between Meijer and a warm apartment with a sobbing drunk inside of it. I stepped off to the side of the walkway, salt crunching under my feet as I hunched in on myself against the lamp’s pole, trying to huddle in as much body heat as I could as I took another long drag of my cigarette. My anxiety spiked when the third ring cut short and there was the briefest of pauses before a curt male voice spoke. Definitely not the oddly smooth baritone of Mr. Smith himself.

“The hell is this?”

It took a _lot_ of willpower to not hang up right then and there. Though, my mouth did get dry and my tongue suddenly felt too big to hold in my mouth, my cigarette being nervously flicked around my mouth.

“J-Jean Kirchstein,” I stammered, my voice sounding way too small. I flicked my cigarette into the snow in an attempt to keep that from happening again. “Is this—“

“Erwin’s taking a shit. You wanna leave a message?”

“Um—“

There was something in the background before the sound of a hand cupping over the speaker to muffle the exact words. I pulled the phone from my ear and hesitated with a thumb over the red END CALL button, but the static and muffled conversation slipped into something much smoother.

“I apologize, Jean, I had to step out for a moment.”

“To take a shit?” I muttered, realizing a second too late that I had _said that out loud_.

I swore I heard the other guy snort in the background.

“Actually, to ask my receptionist if you called. I was about to leave for the day.”

“O-oh.” Okay, so maybe seven was a bit too late. “Sorry, I can call back—“

“All we need to do is arrange a meeting time, correct?” he interrupted, a bit more shuffling and muttering happening on the other end of the line. “What about tomorrow? I’m free until two.”

I fumbled with my phone for a moment, fingers growing numb from being in the cold. Sniffling a bit of seasonal drip back into my nose, I went back to walking as I thought. “Um, okay… Tomorrow could work.” If I couldn’t make a bus payment, maybe Reiner would be willing to drive me. I would probably have to make some gym-related deal with him, but for thirty grand? I could manage. “Any specific time, or…?”

“Just come in before two. Do you need directions?”

“I can Google it,” I mumbled, not wanting to admit that I was nowhere near a pen and paper to write down directions. Besides, if I took a bus, I wouldn’t _need_ directions. “Um… I guess I’ll see you tomorrow…?”

“Of course. Have a good night, Jean. I’ll be here.”

The line went dead before I could form a reply, and I stopped in my tracks on the sidewalk and stared at my lock screen, confused. Whatever. That was one thing on my to-do list that I had taken care of without actually meaning to. Seriously, though, why had I called him in the first place…?

I sighed, shoving my hands back into my pocket and stomping the rest of the way to the apartment.

When I got to the front door, however, I hesitated. The lights appeared to be off, but a gentle glow just _barely_ touched the window panes, drifting in from the kitchen. The brilliant fairy lights that Marco had set up were turned on, but buried under the dusting of snow we had gotten since I last poked my head outside. I felt almost as if I had to knock, as if this was a place I wasn’t allowed. No more depressed fuck-ups. They were at capacity. Come back later.

But the wind picked up and I swung the door open just to get out of the cold.

The house was silent, for once, but once I closed the door and toed off my shoes, I could hear… snoring?

Brows furrowed, I sat my bag down beside my shoes as I stepped into the living room, noticing that my nest (it was too messy to be called a _bed_ , honestly) was currently occupied. Marco was sleeping in the fetal position, hugging my pillow as if he was trying to make the thing explode with the pressure. He was still in his day clothes, sans outerwear, and looked like he was once bundled up in the quilt that was now wrapped around a body that I could only see the head of. A shaved, tanned head. Curled up on top of a loudly snoring Connie as if it was the best mattress in the world was Sena, stretched out along his spine and her eyes barely opened to even notice me. And at Marco’s feet, half-curled in the bend of his knees, was the puppy.

“Cute, isn’t it?”

I jumped, turning to see Sasha step in from the kitchen, a half-eaten donut in one hand and the other on her hip. She snickered at my reaction, briefly licking glaze off of her thumb before taking another bite.

_So help me if she ate all of them I was going to cut the bitch._

“Marco passed out ‘bout five minutes after you left, and I didn’t wanna leave him alone. Dragged Connie in here—He didn’t even wake up.”

Now I remembered her. She was Connie’s girlfriend—The one that I once saw put an entire paper bowl of pretzels in her mouth. _Classy_. “You can go now. I can take care of him.”

She arched a brow at me, seeing through my lie in an instant. “Uh, no. Reiner told me all about what a mess you are.”

My ears turned hot, something flaring and lashing out as the monster in my body shifted in offense. “I’m not a mess—“

She shrugged, turning on her heel so fast that her ponytail flipped as she went back into the kitchen.

Scowling, I followed her, careful around the mess of my clothes that I should probably clean up. She was leaning against the counter, a wide-open box of donuts behind her that was already half empty. The monster was squashed under the anger of my inner sugar addict.

“It’s okay that you need help. I mean, everyone does once and a while, right?” was her distraction, licking her fingers before grabbing another donut. My look of fury had no effect. “Just let Marco and Con sleep it off here. You can go shower, since you don’t have a mass of blankets to mope around in.”

I really _really_ wanted to punch Sasha in the face.

But she just gave me the sweetest smile, munching on her donut as a knit sock reached up to kick at my shin. “Go on, Stinky Sad Man.”

I barely spared her a glare before I had grabbed a change of clothes, burying my cigarettes at the bottom of my suitcase in case Marco woke up and rolled over to see the reminder of his mother’s killer. Sasha gave me a look as she noticed my purchase, but I masterfully avoided her gaze and headed upstairs.

I had long since had my social fill for the day, and no regrets for taking an hour just to soak in the bath in glorious loneliness.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/degradedpsychotic) is still empty, folks. Just $5 to get Marco's story started.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long awaited, but real life is throwing me some punches. Hopefully the length and all the activity that goes on is a good apology!

It seemed like a blink of an eye that morning rolled around and Sasha was poking at Marco’s decrepit coffee machine. I must have fallen asleep during that blink, hunched over my own arms at the kitchen table with my laptop in sleep mode. My back was sore, as well as pretty much everything else, thanks to my position, and I let out a groan that vaguely sounded like a greeting as Sasha filled her mug to the absolute brim with coffee that was more bean than water. I got a grunt in reply, and there was a good thirty seconds before there was a loud screech from the living room and coffee sloshed onto the floor as a terrified puppy sprinted so fast through the kitchen that he skidded on the hardwood and slammed face-first into the glass door. I probably would have laughed if I didn’t feel half-dead with insomnia, and Connie’s screeching formed words that made Sasha giggle as she tip-toed through the mess to grab some paper towels.

“Dude, you were totally grabbing my dick! What the fuck, man?! I know we got hammered, but _fuck!_ ”

There were sputtered, slurred apologies as Sasha all-out _chortled_ , now on all fours and wiping up the mess while the poor dog whined and jumped at the door in a dire attempt to escape the madness of six thirty in the morning.

Yeah, I feel ya, buddy.

Shutting my laptop properly, I ran a few fingers through my hair in an attempt to wake up as Connie stumbled into the room, obviously more sober than he had been but still not exactly _sober_. He came to an abrupt stop when he saw me, looking between me, Sasha, and back into the living room where Marco was obviously beginning to stir. He pointed at me accusingly, and apparently hungover Connie didn’t give a fuck about loud noises because he was screaming again.

“What are you doing here?!”

I gave a sleepy shrug, Sasha trying _really_ hard not to laugh as she got herself another cup of coffee and tossed the soggy paper towels. “I guess I live here now?” I muttered, feeling increasingly uncomfortable under Connie’s shocked gaze.

He blinked, did the circuit of staring at me, Sasha, Marco, and the dog that was trying to break the fucking door down. “Oh,” was his intelligent reply, Sasha shoving a mug of steaming coffee into his hands.

“Reiner’s gonna drive you guys to out-patient. I have to work today,” she told him, a yawn interrupting her as soon as she had finished. Scrubbing at her eyes, she grabbed her own coffee and leaned against the counter while Connie grumbled and Marco slipped in.

Marco looked like hell. Still hot, but _damn_.

His hair was completely flattened on his left side, sticking up in every which way everywhere else. There were dark bags under his red eyes, the clothes he had worn yesterday wrinkled and creased from sleeping in them. One hand was massaging at his temple as the other clenched into a loose fist at his side, and I wondered just _how bad_ his hangover really was. But he wasn’t crying anymore, so that was a plus.

“There’s coffee,” Sasha greeted, gesturing for him to get his own damn cup. (Connie was practically molesting his, moaning about how good it was.)

Marco made a little noise that sounded kind of like a disagreement as he shuffled to the fridge and pulled it open, sticking his head inside and just… standing there. Clearly, he was still drunk, if the white-knuckled grip he had on the stainless steel fridge was any indication. Sasha gave me another look before pointedly grabbing another donut and shoved it into her bottomless stomach before chasing it down with coffee. I stayed rooted to the spot, face blank and eyelids threatening to close and whisk me back off to sleep. Well, if _sleep_ was the correct word for whatever my body wanted to do. Sleep, curl in a ball on the floor, smoke the rest of the packs I had bought yesterday…

“Jean, you want coffee? You look like you need it.”

I shot Sasha the fucking _dirtiest_ glare I could muster in reply. (Okay, so I was still pretty fucking pissed about her eating all my goddamn donuts and giving my borrowed bed to drunks that had apparently ended up spooning at some point in the night.) But she just shrugged it off, not even wiping away the powder on her lips from the donuts.

Bitch. Fucking black hole stomach _bitch_.

Marco finally emerged from the fridge when Connie gave himself a refill, cradling a bottle of water like it was his child. He crumpled into the nearest chair, not even looking at me as he unscrewed the bottle and began to sip at it. Connie was eyeing it with a bit of jealously, but stayed at his station in front of the coffee machine. It was a pretty amusing setup, but Sasha soon put her mug in the sink and headed for the front door.

“I gotta get going if I’m gonna get to work on time,” she called back to us, the sound of jingling keys as she located them. “Reiner should be here soon to drive you drunkies in. Bye-bye!”

I should have begged her to stay or take me with her or _something_ , but she was already gone and Marco was resting his reddened cheek on the table.

Fucking _great_.

“I wonder if Reiner’ll let us skip,” Connie muttered into his coffee, as if he was making a wish into a well. “I don’t think I can stand everyone’s whining today. I’ll take a sick day, I dunno. I just don’t wanna go.”

“Me neither,” Marco slurred against the wood, eyes closed and looking just plain _pathetic_. “I just wanna sleep…”

I just grunted to join in on their complaining, tapping aimlessly at my keyboard until my computer woke up to my refreshed email. I wasn’t too surprised that there was nothing there except my daily Hot Topic spam, but I kept aimlessly scrolling and clicking around to make it look like I was doing something very important and was not to be disturbed under any circumstances.

“Dude, are you still drunk?”

“Nn.”

“Where do you keep your painkillers? We both need one.”

“Upstairs bathroom, over the sink.”

Connie left in a little more than a shuffle, the caffeine slowly beginning to pick up his feet. The dog immediately ran after him as soon as the stairs creaked, and Marco called up behind them.

“Put Freddy in his pen for the day, Connie!”

“Yeah, yeah!”

There was silence then, and I would like to say that it wasn’t awkward and it wasn’t uncomfortable. But that would be a lie, because it was _awful_. Marco had opened his eyes and was just blearily watching me, both hands still around the base of his bottle water as those fucking doe eyes observed me like I was behind glass. I had run out of things to pretend to be doing in my email, so I quickly opened Tumblr and tried to ignore him the best he could. But goddamn if those eyes didn’t suck me in. Dark, endless, deep brown. They were so easy to get lost in that he made me a little sick, but here I was, a fucking gay porn gif on my dashboard and I was busy staring at Marco Bodt’s endless eyes.

Go figure.

I must have made him uncomfortable, staring at his stupid eyes for _fuck_ knows how long, because he cleared his throat and looked away, sipping at his water and keeping his eyes fixed solidly on the opposite wall. I redirected my own attention back to my computer, hastily scrolling down so I wouldn’t have to see an artistically monochrome gif of some guy pounding his cock into some other guy’s ass. Of course, just _glancing_ at it reminded me of how horny I really was, and I slammed my laptop shut, using it as a fragile surface to press my pathetic face into.

“Jean…?”

I am eternally grateful for Connie Springer to choose that exact moment to fall down the fucking stairs.

“Connie!”

Marco was to his feet far too quickly for someone that was still drunk, nearly knocking over his chair as he bolted to the source of the noise (and very loud cursing) while I peeled the skin of my forehead off of my laptop, blinking blearily as Sena darted into the room like a bat out of hell. Marco was blubbering something about getting an ice pack and Connie was complaining about how slick the hardwood stairs were and I felt oddly out of place again.

So I went outside for another smoke.

The sun was barely up, leaving the courtyard in a massive shadow as the sun painted half the sky a sickly kind of grey-blue. The sun barely touched the roof of the complex, and the chill that had settled overnight had done nothing to warm up yet.  The snow was still disturbed from romping dogs and the occasional child that was celebrating a snow day, but at that moment, everything was still. The wind, the birds, the clouds—Everything was still.

Now, I’m not saying that the view changed me. No, I lit up with little regard for greeting the morning because I was still tired and sore and generally not a morning person, but that was the day that things began to turn around. I felt oddly refreshed, smoke trailing from my lips as I realized that today would be the day to take a step forward. I would be getting my money, I would be able to get out of Marco’s apartment and find a place of my own, and maybe I would be able to _not_ want to kill myself the minute I laid down.

The pile of discarded cigarettes in the snow by my feet was more than disgusting, but that didn’t stop me from adding one more and kicking the snow around to bury them, pinning a mental reminder to clean them up later. Guilt about cancer and cigarettes was still churning in my stomach as the sun finally began to touch the courtyard, turning my back to it and going back inside.

Connie was sitting at the kitchen table, a steaming mug of coffee (the mug said MOMMY’S BOY but I chose not to comment) with a bag of frozen peas on the top of his bald head, a weirdly content look on his face. Marco was back in his seat, glass of water still in front of him, barely any progress made onto it. I leaned across him to scoop up my laptop, but the immediate look of disgust on his face reminded me that just because there wasn’t a cigarette in my hand didn’t mean I didn’t reek.

“Dude, Jean, I thought you quit smoking?”

I was no longer grateful for Connie Springer.

I shrugged, laptop being tucked under my arm. I didn’t even dignify that with a response, because it was honestly a stupid question that I didn’t feel like answering, quickly and quietly excusing myself into the living room to sit on the hide-a-bed and wonder what I was going to do. Marco’s look of absolute disgust and Connie’s expression of surprise seemed to be burned into my mind, the fire in my throat and lungs settling down to a soft smolder as I fought back the sudden urge to cough up all the black tar that had collected in my system.

I had to quit smoking. Marco and cancer and mothers were weighing down too heavily on my shoulders.

But that’s the whole point of an addiction, isn’t it? To make it impossible to stop. Yes, it was true that I didn’t have a single cigarette in St. Maria’s, but it was also true that I had needed ultra-strong nicotine patches just to get me through the day, and even then, I would chew or suck on pencils and pens just to do something with my mouth. I knew that nicotine gum was an option, and maybe even those vapor pen things, but the base truth of the matter was that I didn’t put forth the effort to quit in the first place. I wanted to quit, I had the motivation, but there were still chains and weights of depression holding me back from actually doing it. There was still that voice in the back of my head that brought up the fact that I would rather die young than old anyway. Who cared if cancer took me out? No one. There wasn’t a problem.

But then there was Marco Bodt’s freckled face, distorted in disappointment and disgust.

I wanted to vomit.

I wanted to have another smoke.

I wanted to move on.

Two knocks sounded in rapid, firm succession, successfully ripping me out of whatever trance had me staring at the laptop balanced on my knees. I barely reacted in time to lift my head and see Reiner slip in, bundled up in the same fashion as the day before, but this time his mouth and nose was covered by a silver and blue checked scarf. More Lions gear, of course.

“Reiner’s Taxi Service is leaving in five minutes,” he boomed, not moving past the mat at the door that said WELCOME. “Bert’s already in the car. Let’s hustle!”

There were a series of unhappy mutterings in the kitchen as everyone began to move, and Reiner fixed his eyes on me as I awkwardly poked around at my computer. I knew that I had to go with them—I didn’t have cash for the bus, and it wasn’t like I had a car of my own. Sure, there was the possibility that I could borrow Marco’s car, but that thing looked a bit too unstable for me to even sit in. I didn’t want to be the driver when it finally quit.

“Hey, can I catch a ride?” I muttered, barely audible as I tried _so hard_ to keep eye contact. I knew Reiner wasn’t a bad guy—The exact opposite, actually. But he was still intimidating as hell, and his layers of winter gear didn’t do anything to diminish that appearance. “I gotta go do some law stuff in Rose…”

His cheeks lifted, and I could far too easily picture the likely _manic_ grin on his face. “On one condition.”

Oh _great_.

“Don’t gimme that look! Just come to the gym with me. Pack up a bag of clothes real quick and we’ll go there after you’re done with your _law stuff_.”

I fucking knew it.

And that was how I got crammed into the middle seat (“Jean’s the thinnest!”) in the back of Reiner’s Jeep Wrangler, one of my suitcases crudely dumped out and re-stuffed with sweatpants, a t-shirt, and a bottle of water I had snagged from Marco’s fridge. Marco, who was on my left, had his forehead pressed to the window, his entire body scrunched up against the door as if he was trying to be as far away from me as possible. Connie seemed to be the most relaxed, munching on some of the leftover French toast sticks that Reiner had made, getting powdered sugar just about _everywhere_. Bert was half asleep in the front, his seat all the way back and causing Connie’s knees to pretty much be up on his own chest. That left Reiner, driving and singing along to a classic rock station while the rest of us sat in complete and utter silence.

Anxiety was all I felt as we made the half hour trek into Rose, my fingers fiddling with the zippers and straps on my suitcase as my leg bounced and Connie sent me dirty looks every time I accidentally bumped him. The first stop of business was the far too familiar looming white building of St. Maria’s, Connie and Marco piling out with varying looks of displeasure before Reiner hopped out, opened the truck, and I was suddenly transfixed by the sight of Bertholdt Hoover being helped into a wheelchair.

But couldn’t he walk without it?

I looked away when Reiner bent down to give him a peck on the lips, giving them their brief moment of privacy and feeling an odd sense of jealousy roll in my gut. I watched, instead, as Marco held open the main door, Connie ducking past him with his hands shoved into his pockets, Marco remaining there like some sort of bellhop waiting for a guest. But Bert and Reiner were still busy sucking face, and I noticed that he had looked away too.

I wondered what Marco would do if I just kissed him out of the blue like that.

The slam of the trunk snapped me out of it (Reiner had a habit of startling me, seriously) and the Jeep rumbled to life, Reiner buckling up and raising an eyebrow at me in the rear view mirror.

“So where’s this law office at, huh?”

“Um…” I drawled it out, quickly poking my phone to life, switching on the data, bringing up Google, typing in… _Fuck_. Erwin Smith? Yeah, that’d get me something. A few Facebook pages, wiki articles on old dead guys, Reiner drumming his fingers impatiently, ah—

Tap the name, read off the address, and we were going.

The ride was five minutes, if that, and it was just as awkward as the thirty minutes it had taken before with Connie and Marco squished against me. The music had been turned down in honor of Reiner’s focus as he toed the gas and scanned every street sign.

It was a small building, cushioned on a corner with a bank on the left and a daycare center on the right. It wasn’t very impressive—The bricks looked old and worn, the glass door home to a simple sign that read OPEN. The name of it was just painted above the door, LAW FIRM OF SMITH & ZOE, hardly noticeable from the road in contrast to the giant stock numbers of their street address. There was a little parking lot with a handful of cars in it—An expensive looking black Cadillac being the most noteworthy. Hopefully that meant I would be walking out of here with a _lot_ of money.

Reiner pulled up to the curb, unlocking the doors and turning to look at me. “How long d’you think you’ll be?”

“Uh…” I frowned, pushing my gym bag onto the floor as I scooted towards the door. “I dunno. I’ve never done this kinda thing.”

He nodded, glancing at the stout little building before looking back at me again. “I’ll just wait in the car and catch a nap. Knock on the window when you’re out.”

Nodding mutely at the odd order, I finally freed myself from the car, cramping legs and all. The Jeep took off before I could even look back, pulling into a vacant spot and shutting off. Without the engine, it was horribly quiet outside. The only other noise I could hear was the light street traffic and the _clink clank_ of the American flag the bank next door was flying. My anxiety spiked at that moment, as soon as I turned towards the door, and everything in me told me to turn back, to go back to the Jeep, to just _walk away_. I didn’t know why I was so nervous—I was going to get my money. All I had to do was sign some paperwork and whatnot. In and out. No problem.

But my hand was sweating when I grabbed the door knob and opened it.

A hot gust of air hit my face, startling me due to my high nerves and the fact that who the _fuck_ has their heater on high and blowing directly out of the door? After that kind of greeting, could you blame me for being a little dazed as I walked up to a small reception counter and just _stared_ at the man there for a good thirty seconds?

“C-can I help you, sir?”

“A-ah, um—“ I cleared my throat, shifting my stance as I looked around. The desk was pretty cluttered, papers scattered with pens and post-it notes and a computer balancing in the middle of it. The man behind the counter was young, though there were stress lines across his forehead and under his eyes. Of course, I’d probably be stressed out too if my desk looked like that. “I have an appointment with Erwin Smith…?”

He blinked at me, then started furiously typing and clicking at his computer as those stress lines deepened. “W-when is your appointment?”

“He said I could come in whenever, so I guess… now?”

The man’s head snapped up so fast to look at me that it looked like something out of the fucking Exorcist. His eyes were suddenly huge, animalistic terror startling me into taking a step back. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he snapped, more desperate than angry. “I can’t check you in if you don’t have an appointment! And Mr. Smith isn’t even here yet!”

What?

“U-Um, I guess I’ll wait, then…?”

“You need to make an appointment!”

“Then I’ll make an appointment for right now?”

“You can’t make appointments on such short notice! You can only make them a week in advance! Mr. Smith is very busy! You can’t just _barge in!_ ”

In and out, Jean. Breathe. Don’t punch this _fuck_ in the face.

“I talked to him last night and he said to just drop by!”

“He wouldn’t--!”

“He did! I—“

“Daz, _what_ is going on in there?”

I froze, but Daz (I assumed that was his name, at the rate at which he spun around and almost fell out of his chair.) looked absolutely horrified. The bodiless voice came from a hardwood door directly right of the desk, and I heard the threatening sound of heavy boots before the door flung open and—

There was… _Levi?_

“What the hell are _you_ doing here?”

Now, I wasn’t just confusing him for someone else. Oh no. The face of the man that had knocked the wind out of Jaeger had remained burned into my memory. Short, weird undercut parted straight down the middle, looked like he was constipated. Yeah, that was Levi.

But wasn’t he a nurse?

He shot me a glare that actually made me feel physically ill before he marched over to the desk, the shock of him being in jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt not even registering because _what the hell was Levi Ackerman doing here?_

Daz cowered under the little man, scooting his wheeling office chair about three feet away as Levi snatched the corded phone from its cradle, punching numbers and waiting on the line with such an irritated look on his face that I wouldn’t put it past him to destroy the outdated phone’s base.

“Erwin? Jean’s here. Yes, _Jean_ something-stein. Erwin, tell the barista to hurry the fuck up. It’s too early for the morning rush.” He rolled his eyes, giving me a shooing motion. I just sunk into one of the cheap reception chairs, leg immediately resuming the bouncing it had taken to in the car. My palms were fucking _soaked_.

The phone was hung up with a muttered growl, Levi ripping loose a drawer behind the desk with such force that some of the mess shifted and the computer monitor wobbled. Daz looked ready to faint, eyes so big that I was starting to wonder if they would fall out.

“Have Jean fill these out,” he briskly instructed, dropping a thick packet of papers onto the desk. He shot poor Daz one last look before walking away and back into the other room, slamming the door behind him and causing a deathly silence for all of ten seconds before Daz was violently stage whispering to me.

“I told you Erwin isn’t here yet! Now you pissed Levi off! I’m gonna have to talk to him later, and I don’t wanna do that! But now you put Mr. Smith in a rush, and I still don’t have anywhere to check you in as a patient—“

“Give him the fucking papers, you moron!”

Jumping, Daz was immediately on his feet, gathering up the papers in shaking hands and barely managing to clip them to a clipboard and grab a pen. He handed both out to me and I took them, but he suddenly leaned _very_ much into my personal space for a real whisper.

“Whatever you do, don’t say _anything_ about the arm. And don’t stare, or else you’re _dead_.”

“Wh—“

“Just fill out the paperwork!” he barked, giving me a withering look of anger before he went back to his desk, muttering under his breath.

Staring at him for a long moment of confusion (what the fuck did he mean by _the arm_?) I looked down at the paperwork and got to work. Name, birth date, social security, address—

Technically, legally, my residence was still in a shitty apartment on the other side of Rose with a bitch named Hitch. But I considered my new place to be at Marco’s, at least until I got my check and got a new place. But that wasn’t a legal arrangement, was it? So I should just put down my apartment…

The door opened and closed, and I looked up to see a man in a dark coat with a cardboard tray full of coffee. I watched as Daz grabbed one with a loud “Thank you, Mr. Smith!” before I looked back down at my papers because I didn’t want to make eye contact just yet.

I had to fish my wallet out of my back pocket for my driver’s license number, filling out my insurance from what I remembered, and then freezing at the next question. Family, emergency contacts, and medical history.

I skipped all of it.

The next page was much more straightforward. It was actually the same thing they had given me at St. Maria’s before my discharge. A list of my diagnoses, medications, history of in-patient treatment, duration of stay, blah blah blah. I filled it out no problem, flipping to the next page, which was actually the important shit. All I had to do was sign it after glazing over the information of my case. Some bitch hit me, she sued, I won, the end. Big cash prize, here I come.

“I finished,” I announced, realizing that the rest of the stack on the clipboard was just more copies. I handed it over to Daz, feet shuffling on the carpet as he looked it over and muttered something about me not being an actual client because I didn’t make an appointment.

I really wanted to punch him.

He sighed before adding the papers to the mess on the desk, picking up the phone and pressing a button before speaking. “Jean Kir… Krist…”

“Kirchstein,” I corrected, far too used to it to be insulted.

“Kirchstein,” he finished, shooting me a brief, irritated glance. What an asshole. “Jean Kirchstein is here for you, Mr. Smith, sir.”

The phone was hung up and Daz shooed me away, but not before hissing, “ _Ignore_ his arm!” at me.

Seriously, what the _fuck_? Was there just an arm lying on his desk? Or did he mean an arm like some kind of projector… _thing_? Or did Erwin Smith have an extra arm? No, the guy looked perfectly normal when I glanced him coming in. Maybe it was just a desk weight. A little arm holding a judicial scale or something. Yeah, that was probably it.

Erwin Smith’s office was not what I had envisioned. There were no towering bookshelves, no polished wood desk, no fancy laptop, no big spinning armchair. It was actually just a very small room, packed in with a variety of file cabinets and a metal desk not unlike the one that Daz had trashed. Only, this one was much cleaner. There was a phone, a pencil holder with all of its pens and pencils, and a single folder on it. A small easy chair sat on the opposite side, another identical one having been scooted off to the side, where Levi was now lounging, poking at his phone with the same sour look on his face, though there was a cup of coffee balancing on his knee. Now, the office may not have been what I expected, but Erwin Smith definitely was.

His hair was blond and close-cut, the top slicked back into a comb over that he didn’t need. His eyes were severe and blue, eyebrows thick and sharp. He wore a dark suit, a red striped tie hanging over his white undershirt. His hand was resting on the folder, and his other was…

His other was a knotted-up sleeve at his shoulder.

His other was—

“I wasn’t expecting you so early in the morning, Jean. Have a seat.”

_His arm was—_

“Would you like some coffee?”

“U-uh, sure…”

His hand, singular, moved to grab the final cup in the holder, passing it off to me. _Don’t look at his arm don’t look at his arm don’tlook—_

“Thanks.”

He nodded and flashed a smile so charming that I almost forgot about his arm. His arm that was—

“I’ll try to make this as quick and painless as I can,” he began, flipping open the folder and picking out a couple pages. “Miss Baker did not wish to be here personally, so I had a little chat with her lawyer over coffee this morning. While she will still gain money to pay for some expenses, what she did _was_ illegal. Pedestrians always have the right of way, and even if it is abrupt, the driver will still get the blame. Due to this, your sum is a lot larger than we thought. Not only will it sufficiently pay for your medical bills, which we managed to blame on the driver because if Miss Baker hadn’t hit you, an ambulance wouldn’t have been called—So on, and so forth.” God, his voice was even smoother _off_ the phone but _his fucking arm—_

It was _gone_.

“There was no doubt that we would have won this fight for you, and I’m proud at how quickly it was settled. Our offices work directly with St. Maria’s and their patients, so it was easy for us to get your basic information and the details on your case. Miss Baker clearly didn’t know what she was suing for.”

Where was it? Why did he lose it? Why was his suit knotted when he could just cut it off? Was he an ex-Marine too? Were he and Levi war buddies? Why just the arm? The rest of him seemed to be in perfect condition. Did something just bite it off? Did he wrestle bears? Was he mauled by an alligator? Was he a lion poacher? Was he—

“This here states that you are willingly accepting this service and agree to pay the small fees that we ask for. This paper is your sum, as well as the final statements of the settlement and the judge’s ruling.”

Maybe he just broke it but the bones were too shattered to heal. I had heard of that happening. But how did he break it? Freak accident?

“Jean? Are you alright? I know this is a lot to take in… Take your time.”

“Why do you only have one arm?!”

Shit. Son of a bitching fucking fuck _shit_.

Erwin’s eyebrows twitched a little, but that was literally the only reaction I got out of him. Levi, on the other hand— _stop thinking about the arm oh my god —_ had choked on his coffee, phone falling to the floor as he tried to catch spewing drops of hot coffee, eyes wide, and I heard a loud _thud_ out in the main area.

“It was a freak accident while I was working as a volunteer fireman,” he replied smoothly, so unbothered that I thought he was going to murder me. And poor Reiner would be out there in his Jeep for so long, only to come in and find me with a pen through my skull like Joker’s little _trick_. Here lies Jean Kirschstein. He finally died, but not the way he wanted.

“Now, if you could sign here, here, and here—“

I signed that damn paperwork so fast. Mostly just so I didn’t look at his— _Stop thinking about it!_

“Alright, Jean. And here’s your check,” he announced, putting the papers back into the folder after pushing me a sealed envelope. “You’ll get copies of all of your legal work in the mail—“

“About that,” I squeaked, my voice far too high thanks to how much my anxiety had begun to choke me because Levi still looked absolutely _appalled_. “I, uh… kinda left my apartment. I’m living over in Jinae right now, at least until I can get another place to, uh… stay.”

Once of those oddly manicured eyebrows rose at me, his hand resting on the paperwork again, the check still untouched in front of me. I had taken to holding the coffee cup in my hands like a lifeline, not even bringing it to my lips or blowing on it yet. I felt a bit frozen, my muscles cramped and stiff and unable to do much other than prepare to fucking run for it if the arm thing really _had_ offended him. Maybe it was just better to grab my check and run—

“So you’re saying that you don’t have a permanent address at the moment?” was Erwin’s painfully polite response to my obvious discomfort, just as smooth as he always seemed to be. I just nodded, not sure if I could trust my voice to _not_ raise octaves again. “Well, Jean, as I mentioned earlier, we do work very closely with St. Maria’s hospital, mostly with the mental hospital wing. If you’re still in out-patient therapy by the time the paperwork is filed and if you don’t have an address yet, you can take it home from there. We can at least be that forgiving.”

And that was it. It was literally _that_ easy. Sure, it was awkward as hell shaking Erwin’s hand and trying not to stare at his stump while Levi was still looking like he just shoved an entire peeled lemon into his mouth. Daz gave me a bone-melting glare and hissed something about mentioning the arm even after he told me _not_ to, but I was soon climbing into the Jeep as Reiner pulled out, ripping the little fringes off of my check.

It was a damn good thing I had been sitting down when I opened it.

I had been expecting a check for somewhere in the ballpark of thirty grand. That was the rough estimate that I had been given, and I had had planned on a small apartment or something affordable. Buying a used car, maybe. Pay Marco for thanks of putting me up for so long.

I didn’t expect a _hundred_ and three _thousand_ dollars. And that was after tax and fees.

“You alright there, buddy?”

No, I wasn’t. There had to be some kind of mistake. But my name was there, in black and white, spelled correctly and everything. Signed by Erwin Smith, owner of The Law Offices of Smith and Zoe. Official watermark, official stamp, and all that good stuff.

It was real.

And it was a _lot_ of money.

“Can we go to the bank?” I managed to croak, still counting the zeroes to make sure that what I was seeing was right. I didn’t really want to carry this thing to a gym. Besides, the teller at the bank would be able to tell me if all this was even real or not.

“Sure. How much did you get?”

“A lot,” was all I managed to say with a dry mouth and a need for a cigarette.

 _A lot_ was also what the teller at the bank said as she tapped my money into my savings account and slid me a twenty that I had asked for. She didn’t ask any questions, the little old lady that she was, but she did inform me that it wouldn’t appear in my account until they got a copy of the paperwork. Some legal safety measure, or something. I wasn’t in that big of a rush about it.

You know that feeling you get when you wake up from a nap and you kind of forget what your own name is or what year it is? When you see the world passing by but you aren’t consciously aware that you’re walking. When everything sounds like it’s filtering through a tunnel full of cotton and all you want to do is crawl back into bed. That’s what I felt. My anxiety was still on overdrive, but it had been going so long that my brain had apparently decided to just shut down and disconnect itself from everything. I felt like I was stuck in slow motion in a fast forward world until I was suddenly in a gym locker room and Reiner was changing into his own gym clothes with no shame at all.

Did I mention that everyone in this locker room that I had regained consciousness in could probably crush my skull with their thighs?

“I’m gonna change in the bathroom,” I muttered, holding my bag like a small child as I awkwardly shuffled away from Reiner and his purple boxer briefs and fixated my eyes on the floor so I didn’t have to look any of these guys in the face. I was expecting something like this, yeah, but it was a lot more overwhelming than I thought. Half these guys looked like they could be professional wrestlers, and the other half looked like die-hard Marines. Meanwhile, I was the skinny-ass kid that probably looked like he was about to cry.

And I almost did when the bathroom only held urinals and a single toilet that had a “OUT OF ORDER” sign taped on the steel door.

“Jean?”

Reiner caught me red-handed. Hunched over like an idiot, trying to force the locked stall door open. I turned to him with anxiety turning panic turning desperation and I felt that weird lump in my throat and my eyes burned—

I couldn’t change in front of other people. I just _couldn’t_.

He approached me with a grin and a clap on the shoulder as if he were about to berate me, but he shot me a quick look that he understood how real my panic was. He expertly steered me out of the bathroom and into a communal shower area, past a few random showerheads until there were small cubicle-like stalls with plastic curtains hanging up. My shoes squeaked obscenely in all the water, but Reiner just patted my shoulder before gently pushing me inside.

It took me a good two minutes of that weird elevator breathing thing that they taught me at St. Maria’s before I could stop shaking and actually put my bag on the damp bench beside the shower. I could see Reiner’s feet under the curtain, pointed away from me, as if he was guarding it. That did little to alleviate my anxiety because that meant that there was something to protect me _from_ , but. Whatever.

I pulled off my shirt and tried my hardest not to look at the cracks and crevices on my arms as I pulled on the other, the shirt stretched out so much that the sleeves came over my hands. Pants were next, and I awkwardly maneuvered them around my now-damp shoes, pulling on sweatpants that were also too big and suddenly feeling very, _very_ small.

Shoving my clothes back into my bag, I slipped out of the stall and allowed Reiner to do the honors of stuffing my bag in his tiny locker before he turned to me, looked me up and down, and announced, “Aren’t you gonna get super sweaty in that?”

Yeah, Reiner was in basketball shorts and one of those douche-looking muscle shirts with the sleeves ripped down past his ribs and I was standing here looking like I robbed an obese homeless man that was over six feet tall, but I could last. I had to last.

“I’ll be fine,” I quickly excused, heading for the exit into the actual gym. The doors were heavy and it took an embarrassing amount of effort to shove them open, but once I did, I felt even smaller. Seriously, was every guy here on some kind of insane steroids? Part of me just wanted to grab the back of Reiner’s stupid-ass shirt like a little lost kid.

He just rolled his shoulders at my excuse, offering a wave to the man that had taken his gym ID when we had first walked in. The place was crammed with all kinds of equipment, some that I couldn’t even name, and a bunch of sweaty muscles working out to the tune of CNN on TVs near treadmills and stationary bikes. Half of the guys here had headphones on, completely unaware of their surroundings as they worked out all that testosterone and whatever acid steroids gave them.

“How about the treadmill first?” Reiner suggested, noticing that I had stopped to stare. I spotted myself in a mirror near the weight area, saw how fucking _pitiful_ I looked standing there, and quickly looked away.

“Uh, okay.” I could walk. Hell, that was my primary source of exercise. I could probably run a bit on it, too.

Reiner guided me to a treadmill near the back, in a row that only held two other men, both of which were too tuned into their smart phones to pay much attention to scrawny ol’ me. I stepped onto the thing—a monster of a machine, really –and Reiner clipped that little emergency release thing onto my baggy shirt. “Wanna start with a mile?”

A _mile_?

“Uh—“

“Just to test your limits,” he conceded, poking at a bunch of buttons on the treadmill to set things up. “Today’s my upper body day, so I’ll be over there,” he informed me with a little jerk of his chin, and I was so intent on finding where he was talking about that I almost didn’t notice that the treadmill had started to move. “Just hit the stop button if you need to, and this arrow controls the speed. When you’ve gone a mile, come find me.”

And that was how hell started.

The first quarter mile went fine. I adjusted the speed a bit faster, my strides being long as I easily ran and pumped my arms in time. CNN was my form of entertainment, my phone having been pushed into Reiner’s locker. But my mind had tuned into glorious white noise, the residue from my panic and anxiety, and I even closed my eyes to let the exercise help my current state. Running had always been a way of coping, even when I was too young to know what _coping_ really was.

By time I reached a half mile, I was sweating bullets, my pants and shirt were sticking to me, and my breaths were rattling in my lungs. The white noise had only gotten louder, and my focus was now on how far I had to go and pounding the _down_ button on the speed control.

I made it to point five-three before the emergency clip flew off the little magnet pad and I was hanging my head between my knees and _hacking_ , bone-rattling coughs that made my sight swim. I could feel eyes on me as bile rose in the back of my throat, and I slapped a hand over my mouth and ran to the drinking fountain because I didn’t think I would make it to the bathroom, coughing so hard I thought my ribs might break as I pulled my hand away and spit up whatever phlegm I had coughed up.

It was smeared with red and my mouth tasted like copper and ash.

I ran the water to flush it away and went back to my treadmill.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, [Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/degradedpsychotic) is still empty.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear I'll get back to speedy updates one day. But keep the comments coming, guys! Seriously, nothing motivates me more than seeing your comments! I need to start properly replying to them--
> 
> As always, thanks to Skire for beta reading (most of this chapter) and plotting future shenanigans for this story while I'm bored at work <3
> 
> There is a little bit of French in this chapter, but considering that it's near the end, I'll just stick the translations down there. Also, I haven't spoken French since high school, so I relied pretty heavy on Google Translate. If any of you speak French and wanna be my translator when things get dirty, hmu ;D

The best way to explain depression to someone that’s never truly experienced it is to describe it as some elaborate Broadway play with flashy costumes and a blockbuster-smashing success rate. Maybe it’s a fucking musical. Whatever. The star of the show would be the happiest man alive, but he would also be a compulsive liar. You know he’s lying, but you still trust the guy, because the lies are so much easier to handle than the truths. He says he has a pet dog? Cool. Better than the rock he _actually_ has.

Depression makes a liar.

The thing is, when you struggle with depression, it’s a constant lie. You create this character, molded by the expectations of your family and friends and the person that you’re supposed to be, and you become that person. You’re not Jean With Depression, but just Jean. Jean’s okay. Jean’s fine. Jean’s lying. We fake smiles so no one finds out about our inner demons or the pills we need to pop like clockwork. We politely excuse ourselves to the bathroom when we feel like we’re going to burst out in tears or just need to look at ourselves in the mirror and practice plastic smiles. We _lie_.

Depression makes a liar.

I’m still a liar, though, because once that monster sinks its teeth in, you’re not getting free.

It’s like a ball and chain tattooed into your ribcage, dragging your entire body down. You get aches and pains that you shouldn’t for your age, and you cry yourself to sleep more times than that of an average teenage girl. The worst part is that it’s so _hard_. It’s constant work, to keep up those facades and wash your pillowcases in the morning to hide the lingering snot and salt. It takes conscious fucking effort to smile genuinely, or even to _laugh_.

Trying to be happy when you have depression is like trying to wrap your fingers around tobacco smoke.

And by that, I mean that it’s fucking _impossible_.

My depression could be traced back to elementary school. Back when I was the fat kid, tottering around without any friends and youthful naivety that clung to me like spider webs. Back when my parents hired a nanny for me because they didn’t have _time_ for me. Back when I starved myself and tried to find an outlet for whatever awful monstrosity was devouring me from the inside out. That thing that was growing twice as quickly as I was, tearing me to shreds while no one really _noticed_.

I started smoking when I was seventeen.

That was the sort of thing that happened when you lived with an old man did nothing but drink and puff from a hand-me-down pipe that he _claimed_ his own grandfather had carved. The smoke somehow helped clear my head, replacing the pitch blackness with a spark of an ember and foul-scented fumes. I felt like, by inhaling the smoke and tar and _poison_ , I was killing whatever demons lurked inside of me.

It didn’t take me long to get hooked on cigarettes.

(First, smoking from a pipe with whatever _shit_ Pixis put in there was fucking gross. Second, compared to pipe smoke, cigarettes were clean in comparison.)

I didn’t ever _like_ the act of smoking. It was gross, easy to choke, and as time went on, I felt other pieces of me dying along with my demons. But the nicotine had latched on at an early age, and Pixis had caught onto the fact that I was nicking his menthols enough to hand me my paycheck with a “Go buy your own damn smokes”. That led to a huge hole in my finances, as I went from buying one pack a month to one every two weeks, to one every week, every few days… I spiraled down, and fast, but Pixis only told me “better tobacco than Mary Jane” and I felt like I was doing the world a service by sticking to cigarettes instead of pot.

The thing is, when you smoke, people seem to make it their mission in life to tell you that they’re bad for your health. We know that. I knew that. It wasn’t as if the graphic warnings on the cartons were just completely ignored, or that we didn’t see the aisles of Nicorette gum and nicotine patches. Smoking may have been an upper class fashion statement in the twenties, but that notion had died off when cigarettes started killing. My cigarettes were never something that I thought made me look cool, but a paper-wrapped poison that could almost _guarantee_ an early death. I didn’t see them as some hipster metaphor or something that made me look tough—No, it was just a means to an end. If I couldn’t fight the poison in my soul with _other_ poison, then maybe it’d just kill _me_. Sure, quick and easy hit-by-a-sedan had been a more immediate choice, but I didn’t really care anymore how I achieved death. Just that I got there, like it was some morbid finish line to this hellish rat race I had found myself in.

Morbidity comes with depression. It’s a fuckin’ package deal.

And when you cough up blood into a stainless steel drinking fountain, it sure doesn’t put optimism in your system.

Dead or living, I still made it out of that damn gym. Reiner apparently hadn’t seen my little breaking moment, and I had no inclinations to tell him that running three-quarters of a mile almost killed me. I had finished the mile, of course, at a weak walk. He had teased and cajoled me about it while he stood guard outside of the shower stall I was changing in, heckling me to invest in my own membership so I could work on my stamina. He was going on about protein diets and whey shakes when the Jeep was rumbling down the road back to Jinae and I tried to pretend that I was interested.

Whatever had crawled into my veins when I was lying in that damn hide-a-bed had _grown_. It was making my chest ache, my lungs wheeze, and my head felt like it was filled with overflowing cotton. I really just wanted a smoke, but Reiner’s _look_ when I had stuffed the pack from my bag to my pocket was enough to convince me that lighting up was a bad idea.

The deep purring of the Jeep and Reiner’s rambling both cut off as he pulled into the parking lot, slotting it into park. I reached over for the handle to get out, a farewell and a solemn thank you on my lips, but he hit the lock button faster than I could reach.

“I wanna talk to you, Jean.”

Something akin to bile settled in the back of my throat, my hand pulling away from the door and cradling around the gym bag in my lap. My knees came up just as my shoulders did in a reflexive defense, blinking away from the snow around us to look over at him.

“Yeah?”

He sighed, running a hand through his close-cropped hair as his narrow eyes darted to the movement in front of his apartment, where Amadeus was poking around the curtains. “Come to my place to talk,” he decided, hitting the unlock button and pulling his keys from the ignition. “It’s too damn cold out here.”

I followed him mutely, bag slung around my shoulders as we stepped carefully to the salted sidewalk. Amadeus jumped around in the window as Reiner swiftly unlocked the door, throwing it open and stepping inside to take the brunt of his dog’s energy.

Reiner’s apartment was a lot different than Marco’s. It had the exact same layout, sure, but it looked more _lived in_.

There were dirty socks drooping down the stairs, more shoes than inhabitants lined on a little Lions colored mat beside the door, random pictures and abstract paintings hung along the off-white walls to draw away from their boredom. Reiner disappeared to the back to let the dog out as I idly wandered into the living room, dropping my bag beside a large leather recliner I took to relaxing in. Fleece tie blankets, knitted monstrosities, and even a quilt littered pretty much every place available to sit, blond dog hair clinging to the fabric. The only light came from the overhead fan and a little desk lamp that was perched awkwardly on the TV stand. His TV was a lot bigger than Marco’s, and I noticed that the stand was actually _buckling_ under the weight, and there was a whole slew of game consoles shoved onto the bottom shelves in a tangle of wires and cables. It was messy, and I swore that those things under the couch were a pair of neglected boxers, but it had an odd sort of comfort to it. I felt like I could relax here, without a stocking named MOM staring at me from beside a Hobbit wall clock.

Reiner was back after a few minutes, Amadeus bounding over to me with snow in his long fur. I flinched on instinct as his paw swatted at my knee, but something that sounded German made him go curl up on an oversized pillow in the corner, Reiner shaking his head at him and handing me a bottle of water. He gave me a long, wary look as I struggled to open it, only sitting down on the cluttered couch once I had managed to take a sip.

“So you smoke.” It was a statement. An accusation. But he already knew that, didn’t he? Thanks to our little rendezvous on the back porch, he had learned about my little chain-smoking habits and I had learned about his stupid Mozart dog.

“I don’t need a lecture,” I sighed, far too used to the conversation surrounding my habits to even be bothered by it anymore. “I know they’re bad for me, I’ll get lung cancer, I’ll die, blah blah blah.”

I looked up to meet his gaze, having been playing with the wrapper on my bottle, and was met with _ice_.

“So why don’t you quit?” he drawled, eying me as if I was some awful disease that was contaminating his home with every passing second.

But depression isn’t contagious. It doesn’t work like that.

“You don’t think I’ve tried?” I bit back, my hackles raised and defensiveness curling around the monster in my gut. “It’s called addiction for a fucking reason.”

“Does Marco know?”

I just gave a deadpan look. Of _course_ he fucking knew. I smoked on _his_ porch, stayed in _his_ apartment, and my stench was probably already clinging to the walls of that place.

And then Reiner took the conversation into the last damn direction I had predicted.

“Marco’s a good guy. He does good things, whether he knows the consequences or not. He wants to help you. He’s lonely, y’know—Having you around is probably helping him too. But the fact of the matter is that he wants to help, but he _can’t_. He’s not fit to help anyone right now. His mom’s death had a huge impact on him, and he’s still going through the grief. He might not ever be back to the way he was. He has the support of me, Bert, and all his other friends, plus the help of St. Maria’s. He needs all the help he can get right now, but he still reached out and let you into his home. I don’t know your whole situation, and I’m not gonna pretend to, but Marco is giving you a _lot_ of help. You’re probably not paying rent, are you?”

I opened my mouth to announce that I hardly saw the guy, not to mention had time to talk about _rent_. He hadn’t wanted me to pay anyway. But Reiner cut me off, his tone dropping to match the harsh ice in his eyes.

“You hurt him, and you’re gone.”

My mouth went dry. “Wh-what?”

“He’s giving you a place to stay, food, and he’s asking for your support in response. He came from a decent-sized family, but when his mom died, he moved out here _alone_. He needs someone right now, someone more than what he has, and he’s trying to make friends to achieve that. He picked _you_ to be his roommate and his support. And, to be honest, you’re a prick.”

I managed a little gurgle in defense, but Reiner was plowing forward as my bottle crinkled under my grip.

“Bert told me about how, when you were in St. Maria’s, you bothered him. I know you’re gay, and you know I have no problems with that, but… All you want is to get in his pants, right?”

Okay, yeah, so he kinda hit the nail on the head there. Not that I was going to admit it.

“Marco deserves better than that. He deserves better than some prick that’s just gonna mooch, sleep with him, and leave. So step up your act, buy some damn Nicorette, and try to be a decent human being.”

Pixis had once said I was hot-headed. He said that I “struck too quick”, but he was more amused at that than angry when it resulted in horse shit being thrown at some little prick of an equestrian rider that thought he was hot stuff. I argued with him about that, but he just laughed and said, “That’s exactly what I’m talking about” and clapped me on the shoulder.

I was hot-headed.

That was why I had rocked to my feet so hard that the recliner I had been sitting in creaked in distress and Reiner seemed just as surprised. That was when I started screaming.

I don’t raise my voice often.

(Just on special occasions.)

“What the fuck?! You talk like you know me! You _don’t!_ You know about me from fuckin’ _psych ward rumors!_ You don’t know jack shit about me! And you’re sayin’ I need to clean up my act for _Marco?_ I didn’t ask for him to take me in! He offered, and I accepted! I didn’t volunteer to be his fucking friend! I just needed a place to stay until I got my money and found a new place! If you think I’m being that big of a burden, fine! I’ll go to a fuckin’ homeless shelter! I’ll get outta your hair! I never asked for your fucking _approval_ , and I never asked to be Marco’s fuckin’ life preserver! I’m going through tough shit too! It’s not all about Marco, so stop makin’ it all about him! His mom died, _woo-fuckin’-hoo_. Mine disowned me! I’m _dead_ to my whole fuckin’ family! Sorry for rainin’ on your little parade, but he can get the fuck over his mom! He’s a grown-ass man, so stop acting like you’re his new mom tryin’ to get him t’ make friends at fuckin’ _preschool!_ ”

My lungs were _screaming_ as I left Reiner slack-jawed and furious on the couch, throwing my water to the floor and grabbing my bag as I stomped out of his door and right next door into Marco’s.

And promptly vomited in his toilet.

I didn’t know if it was the anger, the anxiety, or the lingering exertion from the gym that just had my chest aching. Either way, it was nothing but _bile_ , thanks to my empty stomach.

I had read once that, if you didn’t eat before exercising, you could throw up or faint.

That never mentioned _blood_ swirled in with the bile, though.

I just flushed it and sat back on my heels where I had dropped on the rug around the toilet, watching the water swirl and refill. The storm that had been brewing had apparently torn free during my little _spat_ with Reiner, and I felt almost peacefully numb. My sight seemed a little dark around the edges, and I wasn’t sure if it was because I felt like complete shit or that I was just _really_ zoning out while staring at toilet water and tasting rust and acidic _vomit_ in my mouth. Sena slinked into the bathroom, rubbing against the doorframe before meowing at me in displeasure. I probably woke her up or something— Either way, she wasn’t pleased, hopping up onto the counter around the sink and watching me like a specimen under a microscope.

Sena just had that feline _stare_ , y’know?

“Shut up,” I muttered in a lackluster insult, pushing a hand through my still-sweaty hair as I looked away from the toilet to look at her. She crouched, tail flicking behind her and head ducking to look over the edge of the counter. “You wanna go back to livin’ with Hitch?”

She perked at the name, ears going back.

“What? We can’t freeload forever, girl.”

She pushed up to sit, still eying me as if she was either going to pounce or leave the room to continue the nap I had woken her from.

I sighed, pushing myself to my feet and smoothing a hand over her head and down her back. She arched into the touch, accepting one more rub down to the base of her tail before she attempted to jump over to the back of the toilet, knocking over a tissue box and a ceramic doe figure onto the floor. I flinched at the crash, Sena fleeing out at the noise, and I quickly grabbed the doe from the floor to inspect it.

The rear leg had snapped off, two of the remaining three cracked and ready to shatter.

“Fuckin—“

And then the dog started to bark.

A snarl evolved into a wordless shout in my throat, slamming the shattered doe into the trash and sloppily tossing the tissues back onto the tank of the toilet. The numbness inside of me was buzzing like blaring radio static. Like bees, wasps, _monsters_ seizing my body and taking me outside of the bathroom, through the living room, ripping open the door of the cabinet to find a donut, but seeing nothing but crackers and cereal—

I turned around, took three steps to cross the kitchen, and sunk my fist into the wall.

I pulled back stinging knuckles, blood cracking through my winter-dried skin just as the paint and plaster had crushed beneath my force.

The buzzing stopped.

I went out for a smoke.

Marco came back around three, per usual, sober and with his own car. He looked a little worse for wear as he stripped off layers of winter armor, taking a breath before he looked up to see me perched on the hide-a-bed, poking at my arrow keys as I scrolled through spam emails from Tumblr and phishers. He chewed his lip for a moment before giving me a barely audible “hi” as he shoved his hands into his jean pockets and stepped closer, awkwardly plopping down in the beanbag chair. Sena rubbed up against his legs in greeting before gravitating towards the kitchen for food.

“So, uh… Reiner called me… Well, he called Bert, but I talked to him…”

The static and bees and wasps and monsters were back.

“Yeah?” I prodded, feigning innocence as much as I could.

He suddenly let out a breath so big that I was expecting him to turn blue and pass out. “I’m so, _so_ sorry, oh my god… Reiner really stepped out of line—“

“It’s whatever,” I interrupted, snapping much more than I had intended. “No big deal.”

Marco looked as if I had slapped him, his mouth still opened from where he had been speaking. It closed with a little _pop_ , lips tugging down into a line. I deleted some more emails while he tried to arrange his thoughts. He took another breath, probably to refill his lungs, and was quick to defend the big tough gay dude next door that I kind of still wanted to punch in the face.

“Reiner… He’s really protective. Especially since… _y’know_. I’m sorry about him. I think he forgets I’m an adult sometimes… Just—He’s a nice guy. He just gets angry when he’s protective, I guess.”

The numbness was back.

“If you want me out, I’ll go,” I said casually, the odd calmness betrayed by my too-hard punching of the delete button as I clear out another slew of junk mail. “I still have a bed at the apartment with Hitch, so—“

“Don’t!”

The speed and force at which he said it got my full attention, eyes peeling from my screen to look up at him. He still had the same startled look on his face, the tips of his ears pink from either residual cold or the tension fogging up the air. He cleared his throat and ducked his head awkwardly, fingers fiddling with the hem of his flannel shirt.

“I-I mean… I know I’ve never properly met Hitch, but that place… You shouldn’t be with someone like that. She seemed _awful_. You can stay here—I won’t ask for anything. My dad’s helping me with rent, and I’m looking for a job, so you really don’t have to pay… I-if you wanna go back to the apartment to pick up what you left, you can… But you’re more than welcome to stay here. I told Reiner to back off, so…”

It was weird. So many times I had been kicked out, nudged, hinted at to _leave_. So many times I had shoved my thing in my car and went off somewhere else to hide out.

It was weird, being offered to _stay_.

Sure, Pixis had offered, but I had to work for my stay there. I had to shovel horse shit at four in the morning and shovel hay at four in the afternoon so they’d shit it all out again in twelve hours.

Marco was asking me to stay. No money, no weird _friendship_ contract, no shoveling animal shit.

It should have brought me relief, but it only made me skeptical.

And Marco could _sense_ it.

“Look, if you want… If you stay until the new year comes around, I can see if I can put you on the lease? Then you’d be able to pay rent… But this place is probably more than the apartment you had with Hitch—“

Okay. Now I didn’t feel like I was being lured by candy into the proverbial white van. Now I wouldn’t have a dozen IOUs floating around Marco Bodt’s evil freckled face. “I can pay the rent here,” I quickly interrupted, closing my internet browser and beginning the process of shutting down my computer. “Just don’t wanna be a bother.”

There it was.

Bother. Problem. Issue. Failure. _Worthless_.

Thanks, little black hole monster.

Marco’s eyes went a little wide, but I looked away as I stashed my laptop under the unfolded bed that I had taken to nesting in. “You’re not a—“

“I’m a guy that tried to kill himself not too long ago, you barely know me, and for all you know, I might be homicidal on top of suicidal.”

He frowned at me with this look that I would have found funny, would I be feeling anything beyond radio static buzzing at my fingertips. He looked like a parent ready to scold a child, but beyond that, I thought he might start crying.

“You know I don’t think any less of you for that,” he said softly, fingers picking at the creases in his jeans, eyes lowered. “You weren’t the only one in the hospital with a suicidal notch on their belt.”

How could I forget with that MOM stocking in my peripheral?

Marco shook himself then, not unlike a wet dog, taking a long breath and slapping his hands onto his knees, making me jump. He seemed to flip a switch somewhere and he was smiling (though it was horribly forced) as he wrestled his way out of the beanbag chair so he might be able to stand. “Right, okay, that’s settled. You know you’re welcome here, and I’ll talk to the landlord about the lease come January. For now…” He took another breath, hands self-consciously smoothing out invisible wrinkles on his clothes. “I gotta start on dinner. Mina’s gonna be here soon.”

Mina? Mina, Mina, Mina… _Right_. Marco’s sister. I remembered being told she was coming for a visit… Ugh, great. Another new person to deal with, and on top of _today?_ Honestly, I just wanted to curl up and sleep until tomorrow.

“She’s gonna stay for the weekend,” he continued, walking briskly past me to start digging through the refrigerator for something to eat. “She’s nice, though. I told you she was studying French, right? You two should get along.”

“Yeah, because _Parlez vous français?_ is a great ice breaker,” I muttered, my French coming out clunky and awkward with lack of use. I hadn’t spoken French since… What? When I was fifteen? Sixteen? Sure, I had been known to swear in French when I was pissed off, but an actual conversation in the language…? I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. French reminded me of mom, which reminded me of the family I didn’t have, which reminded me why I kinda wanted to vault myself into oncoming traffic.

“What does that mean?” Marco called from the kitchen, the clattering of pots and pans nearly drowning him out.

“Do you speak French?”

“No, I don’t! Mina does, though!”

What a fucking _dork_. Kinda cute, though, so that was a plus.

(I sort of wondered how Marco would react to me dirty talking him in French, but that train of thought crashed and burned as my stomach did an uncomfortable flip of sorts.)

_“All you want is to get in his pants, right?”_

Nail on the _fucking_ head, and directly into my coffin.

Whatever Marco was trying to accomplish in the kitchen provided enough noise so that we could avoid conversation. I took a moment to fight through the white noise in my head to find the source of that rather _lewd_ train of thought and, just like that, I felt fine. If I could have a healthy daydream of Marco completely melting with stupid French, straddling his lap and whispering it into his ear, feeling his lips on my neck as he _begged_ me to shut up and do it already—

Yeah, I figured I was doing okay if I could get a half chub just _thinking_ about that.

I groaned, rubbing the heels of my palms into the sunken excuses of eye sockets on my face until I saw stars on the back of my eyelids. I quickly got up from the bed (I’d be lying if I said I didn’t sway a bit with the abrupt change of blood flow) and shuffled my way towards the bathroom, fully intending to rub one out while Marco continued beating up the microwave or _whatever_ he was doing in there.

Of course, things never work out the way I want them to.

The front door opened with a horrendous blast of icy air, the door itself slamming into the wall and bouncing back as the intruder stepped in and let out a war cry of Marco’s name. Needless to say, my little problem and my runaway imagination were scared away.

I heard one of the pots in the kitchen fall shortly after that little surprise, myself frozen stiff at the base of the stairs as the door closed and the intruder—the _girl_ –began peeling off her winter gear. Snow-caked boots went first, followed by an old Northface jacket, the unwinding of a knitted scarf, and the yanking of a hat that sent curls of black hair cascading down her shoulders. I barely noticed that she had dragged a wheeled suitcase after her until it overbalanced and fell on the floor at the same terrifying moment that we made eye contact.

Big, dark doe eyes stared back.

“Mina!”

I was still stuck to the landing of the stairs with something akin to social anxiety and deer-in-headlights syndrome as Marco tore through the living room, a fucking blur as he scooped up the girl in a bear hug and she squeaked as her lungs were _definitely_ crushed and she only slapped at Marco’s shoulder until he let go. She beamed at him and patted his cheek like a mother (it was right then that my brain decided to inform me that this was Mina, Marco’s sister, and she was almost an entire head shorter than he was.) before she turned to me and it was _two_ sets of dark doe eyes that I was pinned under.

“So are you gonna introduce me, or am I gonna be a creeper that already knows that this is Jean?”

My body snapped back into proper human movement at that point, one hand feebly raising in a weak wave. “Uh, yeah, hi… I’m Jean.”

Her eyes seemed to widen at my pronunciation (correction, really, because she called me _Gene_ ) and she looked at Marco before buffing him on the arm and forgoing her clunky suitcase to shuffle a few steps closer to me. _“Parlez vous français?”_

 _“Oui.”_ I glanced to Marco for help, but he was busy scooping up Mina’s bag and plopping it in the living room before going back to whatever mess awaited him in the kitchen.

She clapped her hands together in excitement, and I knew that I wouldn’t be moving from this spot for a while _. “Cest étonnant! Je ne l'ai jamais rencontré un vrai Français!”_

I shrugged, awkwardly stuffing my hands into the pockets of my sweats. _“Je suis né en Amérique. Ma mère parlait français.”_

Suddenly, her expression dropped. She looked almost _sad_ , and it took me a moment to realize I had used past tense. My mother _spoke_ French. Well, she _was_ in my past now…  But Mina’s next words were soft and carefully chosen, almost as if she was afraid to ask, even in French. Her hands folded over her stomach, and I saw a flash of familiar pain behind her eyes as she spoke. _“Qu'est-il arrivé à votre mère?”_

_What happened to your mother?_

Something inside of me felt like it had snapped. It had been a _long_ fucking day for me, and having someone speaking French better than I did made something twist with discomfort. The language that was once a smug little protection for me and my mother to speak was suddenly quite the opposite. I thought I might be sick.

All I could think of was my mother frantically praying at the dinner table while my father cast me out.

“Nothing.”

I went into the bathroom and shut the door before I collapsed from the inside out.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You speak French?  
> Yes.  
> That's amazing! I've never met a real Frenchman before!  
> I was born in America. My mother spoke French.
> 
> [Marco's story is up!](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3753106/chapters/8330059)


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, thanks to the incredible Skire, who beta-read this drunk and with an apparent throat infection. They deserve a medal, to be honest.
> 
> I apologize where this chapter ends, but I think you'll enjoy it all the same.

Turns out, Mina wasn’t actually that bad. (Of course, she was related to Marco, so I should have known that nice apples don’t fall far from the selfless tree.)

I left the bathroom after I had calmed down, which probably put the time around ten minutes, arms folded over my abdomen to feign an upset stomach. I was a pro at faking sick when I was a kid, and not much had really changed other than rather hiding from mom or bullies at school, I was hiding from Marco and his French-obsessed sister.

Within the time I had taken in the bathroom, Mina had made her way to the kitchen, and the damn dog was dancing around their ankles as they made a sibling bonding moment out of un-sticking the noodles from the pot they had burned in. They were arguing over the dog’s name (“Frederick is a dumb name. Freckles is _so_ much better.” “But Frederick makes him sound refined!” “Marco, please.”), leaving me to slink back into my bed and stare up at the ceiling until Marco called me to the table to eat.

To which I replied with a _very_ convincing excuse that I felt like I was going to vomit.

It was a half-truth.

Honestly, the day had just worn me the _fuck_ out. So much that I couldn’t even be bothered to listen to the conversation the doe-eyed Bodts were having in the kitchen while the damn puppy tried to play with Sena, who was, in turn, jumping around to the highest furniture possible. I didn’t even have the energy to yell at her when she had clambered onto one of the wall-mounted shelves that held a collection of kitschy figurines and a Gandalf the Grey action figure. Not even when Gandalf fell to his doom with a dull _thud_ on the carpeted floor.

All I was thinking about was blood in the drain of a stainless steel drinking fountain, _you’re a prick,_ MOM stockings, a confrontation in French about _what happened to your mother_ , and the mystery of Erwin Smith and the Missing Arm.

Needless to say, I replayed the events on the backs of my eyelids until my lack of sleep caught up with me when the Bodts were still eating.

* * *

 

I woke up to an argument. (Well, as much of an argument as Marco Bodt can get into with his own blood-related sister.)

“Last time I shared a bed with you, you punched me in your sleep, like, five times!” Mina huffed, hugging a pink pillow to her chest. She was in her pajamas now, only illuminated by the light that spilled down the stairway and flooded inside from the Christmas lights outside. “And why are you making Jean sleep on the couch, anyway? Doesn’t it remind you of—“

Marco was quick to cut her off, glancing over his shoulder at me. I closed my eyes just in time, feigning sleep just as I had with illness. “S-sorry! I was twelve… I promise I don’t do that anymore. Besides, I doubt Jean would want to share…”

When Mina spoke next, her voice was soft, and I almost didn’t catch what she said. “Mom died on that couch, Marco. I don’t think you want to sleep on it any more than I do…”

Whoa, whoa, whoa. _Wait._

This was where Marco’s mom _died_?

“She didn’t die there!” he hissed, and I could _hear_ the fucking pain in his voice. Whatever knife was through my chest gave an uncomfortable twist at that. “It just… It’s furniture, okay? Now do you wanna share a bed with me, or no?”

There was a long lapse of silence before Mina sighed, and I cracked open my eyes just a _smidge_ to watch her bend down and scoop up her bag, now dry from the snow. “Okay, okay. But if you punch me, I’m punching you back.”

There was more silence as they came to an understanding, filing up the stairs and turning off the light shortly after. I felt Sena shift her weight near my feet as their muffled voices rang dull through the floorboards, my stomach giving an uncomfortable little twist in time with the rusted old knife.

Thirty seconds (trust me, I counted) after Marco and Mina went silent, I bolted out of that bed like it had just tried to kill me. And, shit, it might have!

Sena didn’t even _budge_ as I staggered to the floor, toes sinking into the carpet and more than a few choice words being whispered to the dark. I blindly shoved my hands into my pockets, thanking god that I had my lighter and a loose cigarette and I fucking _bolted_ out that back door without shoes on.

Sure, I instantly regretted it, but I just needed to get out before I let the fact that _I was sleeping on Marco’s mother’s death bed_ get to me too bad. It was black as pitch outside, the exterior lights doing little upon the snow that had finally (thank _fuck_ ) stopped falling. There were still tracks in it from where dogs and kids had likely romped around, and my little half-buried pile of burnt-up cigs was still there as I hopped from foot to foot in the cold.

Okay, so I’m not good with ghosts.

And yet I’ve watched way too many ghost hunting shows and learned that the place a person died is _hella_ haunted. (And I may have been scared to turn around and go inside because what if I saw the ghost of Marco’s cancer-ridden mother watching me through the glass of the sliding door?)

She’d probably be angry, right? I mean, not only was her death bed occupied with a suicidal twenty-something that smoked, but I was a suicidal twenty-something _that wanted to fuck her son into next week._ Then again, if she was Marco’s mom, she’d be nice, right? That kind of selflessness is hereditary. Unless he got it from his dad…

I dropped my cigarette almost immediately when the embers reached my fingers, more out of surprise than pain. Hissing, I kicked it to the pile of snow with the others and, not wanting to risk losing my toes to frostbite over facing a potentially pissed-off ghost, I did what every grown-ass man does when facing times of supernatural struggle.

I went in backwards so I didn’t have to look through the glass, then immediately flipped on the kitchen lights.

I think it goes without saying that I didn’t get back to sleep. Rather, I fetched my laptop and charger from the living room and sprinted to the table like something was burning at my heels. I plugged in my laptop as it clicked and whirred to life, poking at the less-than-Kuerig coffee machine until it started spitting out little droplets of dark coffee. I scrolled through Tumblr and poked around Facebook before I realized I didn’t have any friends to add there, closing the tab with a sigh and delving into Vine compilations of cats and Thomas Sanders as I sipped fresh coffee.

It was nearing four in the morning and I was on my third mug of coffee, more of it steadily dripping into a new pot, when the light on the steps flipped on. I immediately muted my computer, not even pausing the video of a Japanese game show that I couldn’t remember navigating to. Fear immediately clutched at me and I remembered those all-nighters I spent bundled in my bed while Hitch hooked up with the girl of the week and Ghost Adventures glowed eerie from my laptop. Half of the reason I had stayed up so late watching season after season on Netflix was that the show had freaked me out so much that I was scared to turn it off and be left in darkness and (relative) silence.

The light was still on.

Ghosts could turn on lights, right?

Before I could grab the nozzle on the sink and scream about fake holy water, footsteps descended and Mina appeared, pausing at the base of the stairs and peering into the kitchen at me. She came in eventually, bare feet padding soft on the floor. Her hair, once sleek and maintained, was now in a mess of curls and tangled with sleep, matching the distressed crookedness of her plaid pajama bottoms and oversized Disney World t-shirt. She blinked at me for a moment from sleep caked eyes, one hand distractedly scratching at her lower back.

“Marco punched me,” was the only greeting she offered.

I didn’t say anything, my fingers hovering over my laptop as she peered at the coffee, then at the digital red clock on the stove, then to the identical numbers glowing white on the microwave. She looked back at the pot, then back at me.

“What’re you doin’ up?” But she was so tired that it sounded like a grumble that I spent ten seconds too long trying to decipher.

I shrugged, finally pausing the muted Youtube video on my screen. Some contestant had just been slapped by an oversized cartoon hand and the host was grinning sadistically. “Couldn’t sleep,” I gave as an afterthought, watching as she went through every cupboard before finally finding a glass and placing it under the tap, hand still itching at her back as she did her task one-handed.

She made a little noise and sipped at her water, the tap still running softly to drum against the stainless steel of the sink. One little sip soon turned into chugging, and then she was sticking an empty glass back under the stream of water. The silence prodded and prickled at my skin and I wanted nothing more than for her to just shut off the water and go back upstairs. She did one of those things, looking down into her glass as the hand on her back finally fell to her side, fingers playing with the hem of her stretched-out shirt.

“I’m sorry about earlier… I had no right to ask you stuff like that. Guess I was still on a high after knocking out my French finals, y’know?”

I switched tabs back to Tumblr and tried to look busy, but she continued, staring at her clouded glass of water as if it held every answer.

“You don’t have to hide it, though… I mean, you probably already know, but my mom’s gone. If you wanna talk about it, I… I know what it’s like. I know Marco’s a little scattered right now…”

“She’s not dead,” I said, and it sounded like it came from outside of my own body.

Mina blinked, brows furrowed and a frown tugging at her lips as she looked over at me, expectant. She didn’t say anything, and I couldn’t keep my line of sight on her. I just awkwardly looked back down at my computer, scrolling past some social justice bullshit and a few photosets of kittens and Star Trek.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to say anything,” Mina finally sighed, taking a small sip of her water before tipping the glass upside down and watching the water swirl around the drain. “But are you gonna be going back to sleep? Because I’m about to steal that couch from you. Your cat doesn’t look like she punches.”

“If you wanna sleep on the death bed, be my guest.”

It left my mouth before I could filter it.

Mina had already taken a few steps towards the living room, her eyes having lingered on the small dent against the wall that my knuckles had made the day before. She frowned, I saw her cheeks droop, but didn’t turn her body to face me. “You heard that, huh?”

I didn’t respond, too busy burning my _stupid_ tongue on my coffee.

“It’s not really her death bed,” she said softly, her voice barely audible over the gurgling and choking of the coffee machine. “She just… She got too weak to go upstairs to her own bed. It was just… easier. When she got worse, we… She went to the hospital when it got worse.” Her voice was soft, trembling slightly with the care of someone carrying around a gaping wound that they were afraid of making worse. “If you don’t wanna sleep there, though, I… I guess I understand. You can share with Marco if you don’t mind him. He has… bad dreams, I guess.”

I was silent, and that was that. Mina’s feet padded along the wood and softened on the carpet, the light from the kitchen filtering into the living room enough for me to see her pull up the sheets and crawl in, lying still within a few minutes of fluffing my pillow and cooing at Sena, who was too comfortable to argue when feet edged on her corner of the bed.

I hit play and unmuted my computer, listening to amused and fast-spoken Japanese as I filled up my mug again and waited for the sun to rise.

* * *

 

Marco woke up at the ass-crack of dawn, per usual, and I was still sitting at the kitchen table. I had squeezed a shower in between those hours of Mina stealing my bed and Marco slurring that he slept through his alarm, the coffee making me jittery and restless. I had gone through an entire pack of cigarettes overnight, leaving me with none, and I had transferred money over to my debit so I could make a Meijer run when it wasn’t to-cold-to-measure degrees and windy outside. My coffee was on its fifth mug.

Marco shoved an untoasted bagel in his mouth, sloppily poured himself a travel mug of coffee, and scurried out the door to catch a ride to Saint Maria’s. Mina woke with a start and a noise that kind of sounded like _“whowhowasithuh”_ before she groaned and flopped off of the bed, shuffling back into the kitchen. She paused when she saw me, cocking an eyebrow.

“Have you even moved, or…?”

I stayed perfectly still. Maybe it was just a really lame attempt at a joke. Mina just stared at me, then shook her head like she was just humoring a little kid as she set about looking for breakfast. I unfroze and went back to whatever hell I had found myself in on Tumblr, my stomach giving a growl that sounded more like a _roar_.

I tried to remember the last time I ate, but my stomach just gurgled louder.

“Hungry?” Mina chuckled, finding a box of Cheerios and now on the quest to find bowls. “You missed dinner last night… Your stomach feeling better?”

It took me a moment to remember that I had brushed up an almost-but-not-quite panic attack by feigning a horrible stomach ache. “Yeah,” I murmured, shutting my laptop and rubbing the heels of my palms against my eyes, watching color pop on my eyelids while my leg continued to bounce. Maybe two pots of coffee had been too much…

“Here.” I looked up to find Mina sliding me a bowl, a spoon stuck in dry Cheerios as a gallon of milk made the table creak and Mina curled up in the wicker chair, already shoveling milk-soaked cereal into her mouth with no intention of continuing some kind of conversation in favor of _food_.

I finished my bowl before she did, milk leftover, and I got up to grab the box to finish it off. She gave an amused roll of her eyes before she slid her bowl into the sink and announced that she was going to go get dressed and grab the puppy before he threw a fit.

Now, I just want to get one thing straight: I wasn’t a coffee person. Yes, I needed a cup or two just to jumpstart myself in the morning. I blamed Pixis for that addiction too, but I had started drinking it as early as middle school just because waking up at six in the morning for school was fucking _ridiculous_. But, I digress.

Five cups of coffee and I felt like I was about to explode or run out into the snow just for an outlet for my energy. But for now, I just rinsed my dishes and stood in the center of the kitchen, bouncing on the balls of my feet and fidgeting with the hem of the long-sleeved t-shirt I had fallen asleep in.

When Mina came back downstairs to ask how I was, I almost jumped a foot in the air, the stupid puppy running across the hardwood floor to sniff at my feet and gnaw at the hem of my sweatpants. She laughed at me. “I take it you had too much coffee? You look ridiculous.”

Yeah, I probably did. Running my hands through my hair (again) only proved that it was sticking straight up already, thanks to me not rinsing out the rest of the shampoo because I was scared the ghost of Mother Bodt would be on the other side of the curtain with a knife á la _Psycho_.

So I’m paranoid about the supernatural. Whatever.

Mina made small talk, chatting about how college forced her to become a coffee person and telling run-of-the-mill stories about the cute guy that worked at the campus Starbucks and how she preferred chai tea over coffee, but coffee helped her be more awake—

I grabbed the stupid puppy before he ripped a hole in my pants and scowled at him as he tried to lick my nose. “So is his name Frederick or Freckles?”

Mina’s story petered off at my question, her hands having been raking a comb through her gnarled hair. “Huh?”

“I mean, Marco said his name was Frederick, but then he called him Freckles once. Just wondering.” But with my coffee, those two sentences had spilled out in about half the time they should have taken.

Mina blinked at me, comb still in her hair, trying to catch up to my fast-forward speech. She finally got it, shrugging and tucking her comb back into the back pocket of her jeans as she wrestled her hair back into pigtails. “His name was Freckles at the adoption center, but the lady there teased Marco about _his_ freckles, so he named him Frederick.”

“I like Freckles better,” I announced, as if I had a say in it.

(He was still trying to bite and/or lick at my nose, wiggling like a fucking worm in my grasp.)

“So do I,” she agreed, reaching over to scratch at the mutt’s rump, making him squirm so much that I gave up and put him back on the floor, where he just continued to wiggle and look up at me.

“He’s stupid though,” I deadpanned, fixing my face back into a scowl at his cute little freckle-specked face. No, his _stupid_ face. Yeah.

Mina spluttered out a laugh a second too late, a hand on each side of her head where she was making sure that her pigtails were even. “Oh my _god_ , I know! But he’s stupid loveable, even if he did vomit on my shoes...”

My scowl fixed into one of disgust, looking first to Mina’s bare feet and then to the culprit, who was licking the floor as if it was fucking tasty. “Are you serious?”

She grimaced, nodding. “Yeah, I set them outside to air out, but they’re probably frozen by now… You were out cold during the whole fiasco. You sleep like a rock, you know that?”

I did know that, in fact. Zoloft had a way of doing that to me. Sure, no more sleeping pills, but those things still knocked me on my ass even hours later. Which reminded me, I needed to take them… So I moved, opening the junk drawer beside the sink where I had stashed the bottle. Mina was silent as I dumped a single pill onto my palm, wrapping my fingers tight around it as I grabbed a glass and filled it with water, Freckles jumping up on my calves as if he thought the pills were for _him_.

Mina was very quiet as I downed the pill with water (my hands were shaking so bad that it’s a wonder I didn’t get it all over myself) and stashed the bottle back into the drawer it came from. I did my very best not to look at her, grabbing the little bottle of Dawn and starting to wash the dishes as Freckles gave up and trotted to the living room to torture Sena. I was suddenly hyper-conscious of everything from the way my hands shook so much that the spoons slipped from my grip and clanked loudly against the sink to the way Mina seemed to be studying me, her face too far out my peripheral for me to see her expression clearly.

But taking my pills had given me some kind of momentum to throw my caffeine high at. I knew that if I sat down in front of my computer again, I wasn’t going to be able to sit still, so why not  put that energy towards _moving_? And the dishes were clean enough, right? Besides, the quicker I moved, the less time Mina would have to piece the puzzle together.

Though, for all I knew, Marco had told her my entire life story already.

I crossed the room to grab my secondhand coat after turning the drain to open on the sink, shoving my feet into my shoes and feeling the heel bend at the force, my shoe awkwardly half-off of my foot. But my momentum had been started, and soon I was pulling my beanie down to my ears, fishing around to shove my wallet into the pocket of my sweats, and heading for the door.

“Where are you off to?” Mina asked as soon as my hand hit the cold metal knob, her tone much more casual than the intense staring I still felt on the back of my neck.

“Meijer,” I quickly blurted, the image of an empty cigarette carton serving as my goal.

“Do you have a car?” Ah, there was the accusatory tone I was waiting for.

I tensed, my shoulders raising and my chin burying into the collar of my coat. “Uh—“

“Oh, _no_!” Her tone was harsher, and I turned to see her wrestling her own coat on, grabbing the jingling keys from her pocket. “You’re not walking out there! It’s only ten degrees! Not to mention you’re so skinny you might blow away in the wind! I’ll drive you there—No big deal. Okay?”

Okay, so being called _skinny_ stroked my ego a little more than it probably should have.

 I just shrugged at her to respond, watching her struggle to get her tiny feet in an extra pair of Marco’s shoes so they wouldn’t fall off. She nodded at me once she was ready, all business, and I opened the door to let ourselves out into whatever the weather had prepared for us.

I was really glad Mina had offered to drive, at least for that moment.

Almost immediately after I stepped onto the thickly salted sidewalk, I wanted to go back inside. My hands curled into fists and dove into the pockets of my coat, pulling the oversized fabric around me in an attempt to ward off the gusts of wind that blew across the parking lot. Snow lifted and was carried off by the breeze, making it seem like it was snowing, but the gray morning sky was clear of anymore flakes. Drifts had blown up against the walls of the apartment buildings, cascading over cars and swirling over the cement. In the time it took Mina to lock the door with her spare key, I had already lost most of the feeling in my cheeks and nose.

“I hate winter!” she huffed, bundling her jacket around herself before taking off at a waddling run through the parking lot, the lights on an old black Pontiac blinking as she furiously punched her key fob. We raced in silence to it, Mina only sparing a few seconds to wipe her sleeve across the snow that had gathered on the windshield before she dove inside and shoved the keys into the ignition. The car choked and roared to life, vents coming on at full blast with chilly air, accompanied by the radio turned up loud enough to block the noise. Her hands quickly readjusted everything to a lower setting and she threw the wipers on to knock off dusty snow before she backed out of her spot and drove.

She was a lot more reckless than Marco.

She swung out of the parking space, brakes skidding against the ice as she threw the thing into drive and punched the gas. The old beast of a car lurched forward, my seatbelt digging into my stomach, and I began to question if walking would have been the better option. The car’s tires spun as we took off onto the main road, the back end fishtailing as we settled into our lane. I glanced over to see Mina’s knuckles white on the steering wheel, just like my own, clinging to the bar over the passenger door.

“This thing is awful in the cold,” was her muttered excuse, and I was glad she didn’t turn around to see the look of horror on my face.

I kind of missed Marco’s driving right then.

We slid and screeched into the parking lot of Meijer not a minute later, nearly clipping some old lady in a Volkswagen van on the way. She pulled into a parking spot that (thank _god_ ) was wide enough to avoid any accidental bumping into any other cars. She pulled out the keys and unbuckled in a practiced movement, my fingers taking their time to pry off of the oh-shit-bar as she turned to me with her hand on the door.

“I’ll go get what I need, and you can get what you need, and then we’ll meet up at the doors when we’re ready, yeah?” How was she so _calm_ after driving like that?

“Okay.” I just nodded, pretending I wasn’t about to have a heart attack as I unbuckled and stepped back into the cold.

We both waddle-ran into the store, Mina stopping in the vestibule to enjoy the overwhelming heat. I, on the other hand, headed straight in. Breathing in the dry air, I felt a cough tickle me, giving in to whooping coughs that nearly winded me as I stopped in the middle of an aisle just to bury my mouth in the crease of my elbow.

I tasted rust.

I remembered the blood from yesterday.

I went straight for the pharmacy.

Luckily, Mina had gone the opposite way (or maybe she was still absorbing heat in the vestibule) and I was the only one in the pharmacy except, well, the _pharmacist_. I browsed the aisles quickly, hands still fists in my pockets, heart slamming in my chest as I read the labels.

_Vitamins, cold remedies, allergy relief, parenting, children’s—_

I saw it, and the way my stomach knotted made me feel like I was about to vomit.

_Smoking Aids._

Looking back on it, it was really childish how I handled that. Just seeing rows of Nicorette gum, over-the-counter pills, vapor pens—It made me want to run away. Fear gripped me from somewhere inside of my churning stomach, the little monster that had been crawling at my insides wailing in pain. I was shaking, but it wasn’t from the caffeine anymore. I felt warm, body flashing with sweat, my knees weak and my feet cemented firmly to the cheap tiled floor as I tried to reason with the sobbing beast in my gut.

Why would I want to quit? I had heard stories that it was a long, painful process. Withdrawl symptoms made you wish you were dead, and people that quit smoking often gained weight after the fact, shoving food in their mouths to replace the papery ash of a cigarette. Cutting myself off so abruptly would surely worsen my depression and anxiety, and what if I ended up back in Saint Maria’s?

But what if I ended up in their cancer ward?

I had coughed up blood. I had vomited blood. Not even two minutes ago, I had hacked up phlegm and tasted blood on my tongue. I wasn’t stupid—I had read the warnings on the boxes. I saw the commercials. I saw the commercial with the guy that had a fucking _hole_ drilled into his neck, and suddenly I pictured _myself_ with one, seeing Marco go through the entire cancer-is-killing-someone-on-the-couch process all over again, seeing myself laid in a hospital bed with no one that cared enough to visit.

I took one step forward.

What if it didn’t work? What if I tried to quit, then went crazy with my depression and anxiety? What if my stress ate away at me from the inside and I was just an empty shell, acting like a zombie craving after nicotine? What if I tried to quit, but couldn’t, and had to face the disgusted, condescending glares of Marco, Connie, Reiner—

I took another step, shoe squeaking with melted snow.

But what if it did work? I was already on meds—Doing this would just improve my health further, right? I didn’t _really_ want to die anymore. I mean, yeah, my life sucked, but if I _did_ want to die, I sure wouldn’t want to suffer through cancer. Yeah, it might be what I deserved, but I’d rather have the easy way out. I couldn’t see myself growing old, of course, but maybe things would change. Maybe I’d get to fuck Marco Bodt and fucking _marry_ him one day because I wouldn't be dying from cigarette-built lung cancer.

Okay. That was a _bit_ of a jump ahead in plans.

But once Marco had entered my train of thought, he stayed there. I imagined the look of pride on his face when I walked in with my arms laden with Nicorette. He'd probably smile all the way up to those doe eyes, ecstatic for my bravery.

I took another step, scanning the rows.

Maybe, if I quit, he’d finally see how drop-dead sexy I was and sleep with me, demi-whatever be damned.

Three more steps, and I was staring at a wall of green and the bold words of the company that was about to seal my fate.

Lozenges, patches, pills, gum, mints, capsules, and a fucking inhaler were my choices, my hands clenching and unclenching in my pockets as I tried to pick. The gum and the patch had been my two go-to ideas, stored somewhere in the back of my mind, but the longer I stood there, the louder the arguments to _walk away and buy a case of menthols_ was in my head.

I blindly grabbed as many little boxes and bottles as I could and actually broke out into a goddamn _sprint_ to get to the registers before I changed my mind.

(I did, of course, chicken out and use the self-scan line, perpetually scared of the looks I would get for blowing over thirty dollars on smoking aids.)

 


End file.
